


step by step

by ednae



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bodyswap, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Tsukishima Kei is Bad at Feelings, please enjoy your stay, this fic is my own personal hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-06-28 23:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 95,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15716994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ednae/pseuds/ednae
Summary: “You’re me,” and the voice that comes out ofhis mouthis familiar and foreign all at once. Kei thinks he must have hit his head too hard when Hinata landed. Maybe he’s in a coma. Maybe he’s dead.He’d prefer to be dead.Then the meaning of the words registers in his mind and he looks down frantically to see tiny hands connected to tiny arms connected to a tiny body in tiny clothes and everything’stiny tiny tiny.He brings one of those tiny hands up and feels his face, feels his hair, and a shock of bright orange falls into his eyes and he realizes—Well, he realizes way too much to complete that thought.





	1. step 01. change

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was inspired by the manga _shishunki bitter change_ but it's not an au. there are references here and there, but you don't need to have read that manga to understand anything in this fic!
> 
> a special thanks to [OrganizedDecay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrganizedDecay), [Cipheral](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MemoriumOracle/pseuds/Cipheral), and [valdera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/valdera) for helping beta read this fic!! i really can't thank you enough for the support :")

Kei hates receiving. Which is why he doesn’t know how he’s ended up here at this park by the school, practicing receives with Hinata. Alone.

There’s no reason why Hinata’s incessant begging and whining yesterday should have swayed him, just as there’s no reason he should have come back today, too, to do the same boring, horrible back-and-forth all over again. Then again, his own motives have been making less and less sense to him, ever since the summer training camp at Fukurodani. So perhaps it was in this nonsensical delirium that he was persuaded to follow Hinata to the park under the premise of hitting volleyballs back and forth after practice.

There’s no one else in the park, and the sun is just now descending below the trees that surround them, deep shadows being chased away by the fluorescent lamp posts that are scattered around the area. It’s not too late yet, and still there’s an angry rumble in his stomach that’s begging him to eat. But this extended practice is so exhausting that’s he’s positive he’ll pass out as soon as he gets home, dinner be damned.

The constant strain of practice is finally taking its toll on him, he notes wearily as he lifts his hands over his head to pass the ball back to Hinata, who shuffles to the side to catch it. Kei rubs a hand down his face to stifle a yawn before readjusting his arms to receive the ball Hinata sends back to him.

The ball is neatly returned to Hinata’s arms, and Kei is almost impressed at how clean his receives are. Just a couple months ago, neither of them were any good at receiving (though he’d never admit it out loud). Maybe that’s why Hinata came up to him after the summer training camp and begged him for extra practice. And while two days are hardly enough to bring about any real improvement, they’re both a little more sure of themselves now. It’s in the way they position themselves, from their footwork and arms to the subtle lean and arch of their backs. Thinking about it fills Kei with something he might describe as pride.

Of course, compared to the shrimp’s overbearing emotions, Kei’s _pride_ would be little more than a soft hum of approval. Kei can barely will a smile onto his face, and yet Hinata is a tidal wave of determination and pride and intense _feeling_. He jumps around from one extreme to another without ever calming down.

So he takes it back. He wouldn’t describe the warm sensation in his chest as _pride,_ but maybe something more wishy-washy, something more colored in disdain and sarcasm. Perhaps the emotional embodiment of a monotonously spoken “interesting.”

“Oops!” Hinata calls when he overcorrects on a pass and send the ball flying upward over Kei’s head. Kei watches Hinata’s eyes as they follow the ball’s trajectory, right up until it lands. Kei is expecting a thud on the sidewalk behind them, but there’s only a rustle of leaves. He grimaces and turns to see that it’s snagged on a tree branch.

He sighs, already taking a step toward the tree, but Hinata darts past him and reaches the spindly trunk before Kei makes another move.

“I’ll get it,” Hinata explains with a shake of his head. “It’s my fault, anyway.”

Kei eyes him warily, not trusting him to not hurt himself, but Hinata is already shimmying up the tree, grasping at lower branches to help him climb higher and higher until he’s eye-level with the volleyball.

“Toss it down to me,” Kei says, moving to stand under the branches so that Hinata won’t have to throw it and upset his already precarious balance.

Hinata doesn’t say anything, but Kei catches a nod despite his concentration as he wiggles further out across the thick branch. With every motion, the ball jiggles around in its nest, but it’s lodged firmly in place.

He’s almost directly above Kei when his fingertips finally graze against the ball, and Kei can feel his heart pounding with nerves. Hinata’s up so high, and if he falls—

He jinxed it.

With a yelp, Hinata loses his balance and falls out of the tree, his arm securely wrapped around the volleyball as if it’s a lifeline. His tiny body gets bigger and bigger as Kei watches him fall, knowing he won’t be able to dodge the impact.

He’s going to murder Hinata for this.

Kei’s body hits the ground in an awkward position, and he can feel the ball pressed between his and Hinata’s bellies. He groans, feeling pain split through his head and legs. Bile rises in his throat and his stomach roils with nausea.

“Sorry, Tsukishima,” Hinata says with way too much enthusiasm, and if something sounds _off_ when he speaks, Kei can’t tell through the fog in his brain and the pain in his joints. “I thought I could get it!”

“Get off of me, moron,” Kei snaps. He realizes, in the back of his mind, that Hinata’s body isn’t actually pressing down on him, but his head hurts too much to think about it clearly. “I could have gotten the ball _without_ hurting anyone.”

Hinata huffs and wiggles around, and Kei learns that _he’s_ the one on top of Hinata and not the other way around.

He pushes himself up with one hand and rubs his bleary eyes with the other. He notes absentmindedly that his glasses aren’t on his face, and he realizes he must have dropped them during the fall. Only when he’s sitting upright does he look down at Hinata to make sure he’s okay.

He wishes he hadn’t.

Golden brown eyes are staring up at him from behind thick-rimmed glasses. Blond hair is tousled and messy despite being short. Cheeks are heated, pink and embarrassed, in an expression that doesn’t belong on _that_ face.

_His_ face.

“Wh—? What the hell?” Kei scrambles away, landing hard on the grass as he falls backward in shock. The other person, the one who looks like him, is slower to rise, and the gentle worry and flushed embarrassment is no less prominent when he looks back at Kei with eyes he’s only ever seen in a mirror.

“You’re me,” and the voice that comes out of _his mouth_ is familiar and foreign all at once. Kei thinks he must have hit his head too hard when Hinata landed. Maybe he’s in a coma. Maybe he’s dead.

He’d prefer to be dead.

Then the meaning of the words registers in his mind and he looks down frantically to see tiny hands connected to tiny arms connected to a tiny body in tiny clothes and everything’s _tiny tiny tiny_.

He brings one of those tiny hands up and feels his face, feels his hair, and a shock of bright orange falls into his eyes and he realizes—

Well, he realizes way too much to complete that thought.

Kei looks back at _his face_ , at _his body_ , which is so far away from him, and he thinks he really did die.

Or if he’s not dead yet, he better be within the hour.

Because he can’t—

He can’t be—

“Did we switch bodies?” Kei’s voice asks, and it’s weird and unnerving to hear his voice not come from himself. It’s weirder yet to hear such open and innocent awe in _his voice_ , something he could never muster on his own if he tried. It must be Hinata controlling _his voice_ , because he can’t think of any other person on this planet who could look at a situation like this and sound amazed, even _excited_.

Hinata claps his hands together, a twinkle in his eyes behind the glint of Kei’s glasses, and it looks so weird. Too weird. He hates this.

“We switched bodies!” Hinata exclaims, shifting around until he’s on his hands and knees, crawling over to where Kei is still on the ground, elbows digging into the dirt under him. “How did that happen?” He doesn’t sound upset or confused or worried in any way. It’s just the opposite, in fact.

Kei’s heart pounds in his—in Hinata’s?—chest.

“It–it must have happened when you, when you fell,” Kei says. He winces at the high-pitched, boyish voice that comes out of his throat.

Hinata lurches forward, shoving his face into Kei’s, and it would almost feel like he’s looking in a mirror, if the face in front of him wasn’t contorted in some horrible, exuberant joy, the likes of which he’s never even attempted on his own features. “You’re right! That must be it.”

Suddenly, he looks very serious, as if he’s actually thinking for once in his life. Kei is afraid to breathe.

With steeled determination that looks so out of place on _his face,_ Hinata pushes himself off the ground and stands up, barely pausing to brush the dirt off the baggy T-shirt he’s wearing. There’s a look of wonder and surprise on his face as he turns his head, seeing the world from so high up.

“You’re so tall!” Hinata gushes, stooping low to help Kei stand. He grins so widely that it squints his eyes and reddens his cheeks, and Kei is embarrassed to see such an expression on his face. It looks wrong. He hasn’t seen his own face twist in such emotive ways in years. It looks like it hurts.

Kei takes the offered hand and scowls at the way his own is engulfed by the larger one. Without any apparent effort, Hinata lifts Kei off the ground, and he’s able to register the differences immediately.

Hinata’s body is _so small_. Impossibly small. Kei can barely remember a time when he was this short; it must have been ages ago. He feels like he’s on his knees, or sitting down, or something because there’s just _no way_ he can be standing up right now.

He hears snickering above him and he has to crane his neck upwards to meet Hinata’s gaze.

“Tsukki, you’re so short,” he sing-songs, eyes narrowed playfully as he hides a grin behind a large hand. Were his hands always so big?

“Don’t call me that,” he snaps, balling his hands into fists. He doesn’t have the energy to rise to Hinata’s bait right now, not when he’s still trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

“I guess you’re the shrimp now!” he teases, leaning down and ruffling Kei’s hair. It’s weird and uncomfortable and the orange hair is so messy and heavy and Kei wonders how Hinata has dealt with this kind of thing his whole life.

Kei pushes Hinata’s hand away. “Aren’t you even a _little_ worried about this?”

Hinata hums as if he’s thinking it over, but his eyes are still wandering as they take in the world around him. Kei’s neck is starting to hurt from looking up so constantly. “Well, I guess, but just think! With this height, I can _definitely_ become Karasuno’s ace!”

Kei runs a hand down his face. “Even in my body, you’re still just a middle blocker, peabrain.”

“Oh.” Hinata brings a hand to his chin, undeterred by Kei’s efforts to shoot him down. “Maybe I can ask the captain or Coach Ukai about switching my position.”

“You mean _my_ position,” Kei corrects. “That’s _my_ body, and you’re not just going to do whatever you want with it.”

Hinata slumps over, like he hadn’t even considered that this wasn’t a temporary situation and that body did, in fact, belong to someone else. Idiot.

“But what if we’re stuck like this?” Hinata asks, and there’s _almost_ a hint of worry in his voice. Almost.

“We are _not_ stuck like this,” Kei says forcefully, but it comes out way less certain than he had intended. “We just… have to fix it. Somehow.”

Hinata stares down at him. “So what do we do?”

Kei feels restless under the same piercing gaze that he has directed at so many people in the past. “How should I know? You’re the reason we’re in this situation.”

Hinata squints as his face falls into a frown. “Um… I don’t know. I was just trying to get the ball and—”

“The tree.”

“Huh?” Hinata leans down so they’re closer to eye level, and Kei can’t help but think he’s getting too comfortable with this reversed height difference. It irritates him.

“It’s the tree,” Kei repeats. “You fell out of the tree and landed on me, and then we switched.”

“Oh!” Hinata says, lighting up at Kei’s revelation. “Then all we have to do is…”

He breaks off, and Kei really doesn’t like where this is going. He watches Hinata run back to the tree, tripping awkwardly over gangly legs, and Kei breathes out a resigned, “Oh, no.” Because he knows what’s about to happen. And sure enough, Hinata is climbing the tree again, his tongue sticking out in concentration as he hops from branch to branch until he’s halfway up the tree.

“I’m going to jump!” he calls down, and Kei braces himself for the impact because there’s absolutely no way he’s going to convince Hinata that this is the stupidest idea he’s ever had in his life.

Hinata launches himself directly at Kei, and they land on the ground in a heap.

Kei’s head knocks against the ground, but the blow is softened by Hinata’s hand which has somehow snaked its way around his neck, as if to protect him from the fall. How thoughtful.

(Or maybe not _thoughtful,_ per se, since it was rare that Hinata thought about something other than volleyball.)

But Kei looks up at his own face made foreign by unhidden emotions. He knew that this wouldn’t change anything, but he can’t help the disappointment that sinks in his stomach when he finds out they’re still in each other’s bodies.

“Nothing happened,” Hinata sighs, pushing himself off of him. Kei’s head falls with a dull thud back against the grass, and he stares up at the purple hues of the evening sky. It’s getting darker, and he can see a few stars shining through, but even for all its beauty, Kei can’t enjoy it. Not after something like this.

“I knew it wouldn’t,” Kei says, condescension dripping in his every word. It sounds weird on Hinata’s tongue.

Hinata’s brow furrows, and Kei thinks that he’s going to get premature wrinkles before they manage to fix this situation they’re in. “Well, maybe if you—”

“No.”

“You didn’t even let me finish!” Hinata pouts, crossing his arms over his chest and sticking out his bottom lip.

“You were going to tell me to climb that tree and jump on you,” Kei says with a deadpan. “And I’m not going to do it. It’s a stupid idea.”

“But—”

“Absolutely not.”

Hinata sticks his tongue out. “Stingyshima. You’re the one who wanted to go back to normal.”

“Are you saying you _don’t_ want to go back to normal?” Kei raises an eyebrow, both in taunt and in exasperation.

Hinata stumbles over his words. “Well—uh, no, I didn’t—ugh, you know what I mean!”

Kei laughs, and it sounds far more genuine than he intended. It’s probably the voice.

A familiar alarm rings out, and Kei looks down at his wrist only to see it bare. It’s an annoying reminder of their current situation, and with a scowl he looks at _his body_ to see a watch blinking with a reminder that they’ve run out of time.

Hinata is a bit slower to catch up, and he lazily looks down at his own arm, blinking a few times in confusion. “Huh?”

“It’s an alarm, dumbass,” Kei explains through clenched teeth. “I set it because I knew you’d get carried away, and I didn’t want to spend all night here.”

Hinata grins. “Good idea! You’re so smart.”

Kei stares blandly, wondering how Hinata reached that conclusion. “I was just being prepared.”

Hinata pushes himself up before offering yet another helping hand to Kei, who grudgingly accepts it. He’s once again faced with a world that’s bigger than he’s used to, but he pushes down the discomfort and unease and grapples with their newest hurdle.

“Well, come on then,” Kei says dejectedly, not even daring to look Hinata in the eye. “We’re going home.”

“What?” Hinata tilts his head to the side like he’s some kind of confused puppy. He definitely has the energy of one.

“You’re sleeping at my house tonight,” Kei elaborates. “Or rather, I’m sleeping over at my own house.”

Hinata still looks utterly confused.

“Have you forgotten our current situation?” Kei grumbles. “You can’t go home like that.”

Hinata’s face falls, and he looks almost devastated. Kei feels some semblance of sympathy for the kid before metaphorically crushing it between his fingers. He has no intention of sympathizing with someone like Hinata. “I guess not. So then… I have to stay at your house?”

Kei nods. “Unless you want your parents freaking out about there being an intruder in your house.”

Hinata scrunches up his face. “I don’t know anyone in your family,” he says. “It’d be awkward.”

“That’s why I’m sleeping there tonight too, moron.” Kei resists the urge to grab Hinata, as if to force the idea into his brain through osmosis. “It’ll be a sleepover, I guess.”

Hinata perks up at the idea, his face practically glowing as he stretches his arms high above his head. “A sleepover at your house? I’ll get to see your room and everything!”

He bounds ahead toward their discarded backpacks, slinging his over his shoulder with reckless abandon. If it hadn’t been buckled shut, papers and notebooks most certainly would have flown across the park. He hands Kei his and even goes so far to remove the watch and hand that over, too. Kei takes both.

He briefly wonders if he’s imagining all of this, or if he’s dreaming, but he decides it doesn’t matter right now because he has so much more to deal with than the logistics of their situation.

“I’m so excited!” Hinata gushes as he starts walking aimlessly. He steps with conviction, but Kei knows full well that Hinata has never been to his house before and therefore has no idea where he’s going. But Hinata just keeps walking, not even looking back to see if Kei is following him.

But Kei does follow him, because there’s nothing else he can do. They’re both going to the same place—unfortunately. “My brother’s at college, and my mom is working late tonight. It’ll be easier than trying to deal with your family.”

Hinata looks over his shoulder and sticks his tongue out. “You don’t know anything about my family.”

“I know you have a sister, and that’s already too much,” Kei says plainly.

Hinata huffs. “Fine, you’re right. She’s too nosy anyway.”

“I know I’m right.” He ignores the face Hinata makes as he jogs forward. He has to put more energy than he’s used to into keeping up with Hinata’s long strides. “Can you slow down?” Kei grumbles, tripping over his feet in his attempt to keep up with Hinata’s brusque pace.

“What are you talking about?” Hinata asks, looking down at him. “I’m just walking normally.”

“You’re not five centimeters tall anymore, dumbass. You can slow down.”

Hinata slows to something of a crawl, allowing Kei to finally catch his breath. “This is weird,” he says, when they’re finally walking side-by-side. “What are we gonna do?” Kei wonders if Hinata has finally gotten some sense knocked into him.

He looks up, and he hates that he’s getting used to this. “How should I know?”

“In anime, they always have to pretend to be each other,” Hinata muses. Then, with a mischievous glimmer in his eye, he looks down at Kei and flashes a condescending smirk. In a fake deep voice, he says, “Hey shrimpy, how’s the weather down there?”

Kei feels a little nauseous, but he hides it with a blank stare.

“No, no!” Hinata scolds, pressing his fingers against Kei’s face. “That’s now how I’d react at all!” He molds Kei’s mouth into an open-mouthed scowl, using two fingers to push down his eyebrows. It’s way, way too handsy for Kei’s liking, and he swats Hinata away forcefully.

“What are you _doing?_ ” he demands, keeping his hands defensively in the air to protect himself from another onslaught.

“You’re supposed to be me!” It comes out almost as a whine. “It’s gotta look convincing.”

Kei sighs. “No one’s going to find out anyway.”

“They’ll know _something’s_ wrong with us,” Hinata counters.

“Maybe, but there’s no one in their right mind who would guess a _body swap_ is the answer.” Kei folds his arms over his chest. “You’re worrying too much about this.”

Hinata’s eyes are clear and wide and sincere when he looks down at him. “I’m not worried at all. I’m actually excited about this!”

“Only a volleyball freak like you would be excited about switching bodies with someone.”

“Well, yeah!” Hinata says, as if Kei wasn’t insulting him. “I’ve always wanted to be tall, and now I’m you! It’s like the gods heard my prayers.”

“If you say this—” he gestures between them, “—is because of divine intervention, I’m becoming an atheist right now.”

Hinata laughs and elbows him playfully, knocking Kei off balance. He takes a moment to correct himself and wonders just how Hinata plans to play volleyball like this. Then again, he’s long since given up on trying to understand his thought process at all. He’s too single-minded without thinking of the consequences.

He can’t relate.

“What if someone’s home when we get there?” Hinata asks. “Am I supposed to pretend to be you?”

He says it so earnestly that Kei can’t help but wonder if he’s a better actor than he gives him credit for. He can’t imagine that being the case, though, so he discards the thought as soon as he thinks it. “I guess so. Just don’t be an idiot and no one will suspect anything. The house will probably be empty when we get there, anyway.”

Hinata breathes out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness.”

“You can’t hide from everyone forever,” Kei points out, even though they’re the last words he, himself, wants to hear right now. Truthfully, he wants nothing more than to hide in his room until some miracle occurs and he’s back in his own body again.

“You’d be freaked out too if you were meeting my parents like this!” Hinata’s right, but Kei refuses to give him that satisfaction.

He sighs. “This is the worst day of my life.”

“Tell me about it,” Hinata agrees, and then groans pitifully. “Ugh, I can’t believe I’m _agreeing_ with you on something! This really is the worst day ever.” He brings his hands to his face in distress.

“Don’t sound so happy about it,” Kei says sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Now shut up, we’re here.”

Hinata stops dead in his tracks and looks up at Kei’s house. It’s nothing special, but he looks at it like he’s just witnessed a rare natural phenomenon. “It’s your house!” he exclaims, pointing at it excitedly.

“Why are you so excited about this?” Kei asks with a raised eyebrow. “It’s just a house.”

“I haven’t had a sleepover in _years!”_ Hinata explains. “The last I had was at Izumin’s house in seventh grade, I think.”

“Wow, I can’t even begin to imagine why,” Kei says, wielding sarcasm like a blade meant to pierce Hinata’s heart. “It certainly can’t be because of how loud and obnoxious you are, right?”

Hinata huffs. “Shut it. It’s because of my sister. I have to watch her a lot so she doesn’t get eaten by boars.”

“Eaten… by boars?” He definitely doesn’t want to spend any amount of time at Hinata’s house if there are man-eating boars around.

“Well, maybe not _eaten_ , but they can get pretty aggressive. So I have to watch Natsu so she doesn’t get into any trouble.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal.

“I doubt any boars would be deterred by your presence,” Kei says. “You’re about as intimidating as a goldfish.”

Hinata grumbles to himself and puckers his lips in an angry pout. “I’m plenty intimidating.” It’s not very convincing.

Kei lets it drop regardless. “When you go inside, make sure your shoes are put away properly and you greet whoever’s home. Make sure to introduce me to everyone, and then we can go up to my room. No one should bother us until dinner. And don’t act all happy-go-lucky, either. They’ll think I’m sick or maybe dying, and I don’t want to deal with that.”

“You wouldn’t have to deal with it anyway.” And Hinata has a point, but not one that Kei is willing to entertain at the moment.

“Whatever. Just don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do,” he says. He reaches into his bag to find his house key, pointedly ignoring the slight tremble in his hand as he fumbles with the keyring.

He opens the door but lets Hinata go in before him, far too conscious of how he’ll be perceived by his family while he looks like this. He can see Hinata shaking, terrified of the oncoming confrontation that he can’t avoid, but Kei pushes him past the threshold and takes off his shoes. Hinata may be a coward, but he can perform spectacularly under pressure, and he has no doubts in his ability to keep up as much of an appearance as he can muster.

“I’m—I’m home!” Hinata announces, but he’s met with an uncomfortable silence. His mom is still working, then. Good.

Kei breathes out a sigh of relief and retrieves his phone. “My mom isn't home, so I’ll let her know you came home with me. You tell your parents you’re sleeping here tonight.”

“O–oh, okay,” Hinata says, flipping open his phone to send the email. “So what now?” He looks around wondrously at Kei’s house.

“We can, uh, go hang out in my room, I guess…” Kei says. “Unless you want a snack first.”

“No, I’m not… very hungry.” Hinata pauses, looks down at his stomach, and scrunches up his face. “That doesn’t happen often.”

“That’s because _I_ don’t eat like a pig,” Kei spats even as his own stomach growls. “You, on the other hand…”

“I keep telling you, you should eat more properly.” Hinata huffs, already making his way toward the kitchen. Kei follows after and takes a seat at the table, if only to mercilessly scrutinize Hinata’s every move. “I’ll make you a sandwich.”

“I can make it myself…” Kei trails off, then realizes the implications of what Hinata said. “Wait. Do you even know how to cook?” he asks suspiciously. He’d rather not be poisoned. If he dies, then they’re both screwed.

“Yes!” Hinata scoffs, offended. “I cook with my mom all the time!”

“Hm.” Kei watches in silence as Hinata scurries about the kitchen, only speaking to point him in the direction of ingredients. Hinata, too, makes no effort to keep up a conversation, instead completely focused on the task at hand. It’s in his personality to give one hundred percent in everything he does.

If it means he’s leaving Kei alone, then he supposes it’s a good thing for now.

He pops a piece of bread into the toaster and cracks an egg into a pan on the stovetop and moves it around with a fork because he got frustrated looking for a spatula and refused Kei’s help. It’s only a few minutes before the timer on the toaster pings and startles Hinata, and then he’s scrambling for a plate and putting everything together. Even then he doesn’t say anything at all, putting all his effort and concentration into the food he’s preparing.

The egg sandwich is nothing fancy, lacking even salt for seasoning. Kei thinks that even a cat could make this meal, but Hinata presents it with all the flourish of a five star chef, setting the plate down with a _clink_ on the table in front of him. “Eat up!”

Kei stifles a sigh. To be honest, he’s way too hungry to refuse this. So he mumbles, “thanks for the food,” and picks up the sandwich, eyeing it warily before shoving it into his mouth. It’s beyond bland, but the taste only fuels his hunger, and he ends up scarfing down the entire thing faster than he’s eaten anything before in his life.

“You really were hungry!” Hinata says, overjoyed that his cooking was so well-received. He takes the plate back and sets it on the counter as if he lives here before returning to where Kei sits.

“It’s your fault,” Kei grumbles as Hinata takes a seat opposite of him. “How do you have so much room for food in this tiny body?”

“I could ask the same to you!” Hinata nearly shouts, pointing an accusatory finger toward Kei. Then his eyebrows furrow, and he brings that same finger to his lips as he thinks. “Or maybe not the same. More like the opposite. How can you get by just eating the bare minimum! That clearly means you don’t exercise enough. I’ll have to fix that—”

“You’re not doing anything with _my_ body,” Kei growls, leaning over the table to glare at Hinata. “You’re just borrowing it right now, so you’re not allowed to do anything to it.”

“But I’d just be helping you!” Hinata protests, completely ignoring the malice in Kei’s tone. “If you work harder, you’ll get better at volleyball! Isn’t that what you want?”

“Not everyone is as obsessed with volleyball as you are.”

Hinata makes a face, about as confused as if Kei has started speaking in English without any warning. But that confusion leads into some kind of realization, and his eyes widen, his eyebrows comically drawn together. “You better not mess my body up, either! If you don’t work hard, I’ll waste away! And then I’ll never be the ace.”

“You’re still trying to be the ace?” Kei asks, his lips drawing up in a mocking smirk.

“I’m serious!” Hinata says with a scowl. Kei wants to argue, but there’s something about Hinata’s tone that puts out his fire. “If you want me to keep up your habits so you can return to the body you’re familiar with, I will. But you have to do the same for me.”

Kei sighs. “Maybe we should make some ground rules. But not here. Let’s go to my room.”

All the gravity of Hinata’s expression lifts, and he jumps up from the table with an excited, wordless shout, already bouncing out of the kitchen. “I get to see Tsukishima’s room!”

“Do you even know where my room is?” Kei calls after him, raising an eyebrow at the empty archway.

Hinata pops his head back in after a second. “No, I don’t. Show me!”

Kei pulls his lips back in a grimace and stands, then leads Hinata up the stairs and toward his room.

It’s almost nerve-wracking, since he’s only ever shown his room to Yamaguchi. Then again, Yamaguchi has been his only friend since grade school. He wonders if this means that Hinata is his friend now, but he quickly banishes the thought with a shake of his head. They’re not friends, not yet. Just unwilling, begrudging allies in an unfortunate, surreal situation. He has no choice but to get along with him for now, and when they fix this mess, they can part ways and go back to hating each other.

They’ll definitely get back to normal. They have to. He just hopes it’ll be sooner rather than later.


	2. step 02. dinosaurs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kei stares at the paper, then at Hinata, trying his best to bore a hole in his skull. “Your rules range from ‘play with your baby sister’ to ‘disrupt the local peace by screaming so loudly that you blow the eardrums of everyone around you.’” He scoffs. “I guess it makes sense for a simpleton like you.”

Hinata’s eyes are already sparkling when he steps into Kei’s room.

“Dinosaurs!”

Kei raises an eyebrow, glancing at the dinosaur figurines lining his shelves. Hinata’s reaction does nothing to calm his nerves, but he keeps his expression schooled into impassivity because he cannot and will not give Hinata any leverage over him, even if it’s about something as stupid as those old dinosaur toys he’s had since he was a kid. “Yes, they are.”

“They’re so cute!” Hinata gushes, surging forward to grab at them. He picks one up before Kei can say anything and examines it, turning it over in his hand.

Kei lunges at Hinata and grabs the toy away from him. “Don’t touch anything!” he scolds, and though Hinata pouts clearly and evocatively, he doesn’t _actually_ look upset.

“I just wanted to see it,” Hinata says, sticking his lip out comically. Kei doesn’t rise to the bait and instead places the figurine back on the shelf, shifting it around until it’s back in place. “You take good care of your stuff.”

“I don’t particularly like replacing all my things every few months,” he says, pulling Hinata away from the shelf and toward the small table set up in the middle of his room. It has a few textbooks scattered across it, with old homework and tests laid out for studying. Kei brushes all of that to the side and pulls out a notebook.

“Are you doing homework?” Hinata asks, sitting down next to him as Kei flips the notebook open to a clean sheet of paper and writes out a title, underlining it for effect.

“We need rules,” Kei says by way of explanation. “What we’re allowed to do and what we’re not allowed to do. For example, you aren’t allowed to be all happy-bubbly in front of other people.”

“Do you think I’m gonna ruin your Cool Kid image, Tsukishima?” Hinata snickers into his hand. “I think I’m plenty cool, myself.”

Kei rolls his eyes and writes down his first rule. “I guess you would think that, since you don’t have any good examples to prove you wrong.”

“You know, I realize that you were trying to insult me, but you also just called yourself lame so I’m gonna take that as a win for me.” He shifts around, bumping his thigh against Kei’s, and Kei is suddenly made aware of just how close they are, and just how comfortable Hinata is touching him.

There’s a realization to be made here, perhaps something along the lines of their relationship developing from purely antagonistic to something just slightly left of purely antagonistic, but Kei doesn’t care to dabble in those thoughts. He’s comfortable with how they are now: always fighting, always pissing the other off, always one step away from spiking the other like a ball at practice. It’s a good, stable relationship, if he does say so himself.

“You’re the one who called me cool. I never said anything like that,” Kei defends half-heartedly, though he grips his pencil tighter in his hand.

“So you admit it.”

“I admit nothing.”

“You’ll come around eventually.” This time, the bump against Kei’s thigh is entirely intentional, a playful jab that even Kei doesn’t mind all that much. Hinata peers uncomfortably over Kei’s shoulder, partially blocking his view. Kei pushes him out of the way. “What’s the next rule?”

“Don’t be… yourself,” Kei finishes with a sneer. Hinata scoffs and punches Kei’s shoulder, but it’s lighthearted enough that it doesn’t hurt.

“Then my first rule is that you can’t be yourself, either!” Hinata ends his statement with a loud, pointed huff. “You have to at least _try_ to act like me.”

“Sorry, I don’t run on rechargeable batteries,” Kei says, lifting a hand in mock apology.

Hinata sticks out his tongue and wrinkles up his nose. “Neither do I, Stupidshima! And if you ate properly, you’d have plenty of energy.”

“Your idea of eating properly is stuffing as much food as physically possible into your mouth,” Kei says. “I’m still not sure if you even _chew_ your food, or if you just suck it up like a vacuum cleaner. Like Noo Noo from the _Teletubbies_ or some shit.”

“I need to eat a lot so I’ll have energy!” Hinata protests loudly, thumping his chest with his hand.

Kei stares at him. “Trust me. You do _not_ need any more energy.”

Hinata recoils. “Stupidshima…”

“What? Did I hurt your feelings?” It comes out in a sarcastic sing-song, and he tilts his head in a taunt, daring him to retaliate.

“No!” he exclaims, slamming his hands down on the table. “Gimme the notebook. I want to write down my rules, too.” Hinata pulls the notebook out from under Kei’s hand and plucks the pencil from his fingers, scribbling kana in scratchy, messy handwriting.

Kei peers over the barricade Hinata has set up with his arm and reads the words on the page. “Play with Natsu?” he asks.

“I always have to play with her when my parents aren’t home,” Hinata explains without looking up. “So if you end up going to my house, you have to play with her, too, or she’ll get upset.”

“You’re assuming that we’re still going to be like this tomorrow,” Kei points out.

“Aren’t you, too?” Hinata asks, finally looking up. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t even be making this list.”

Kei narrows his eyes. He has a point. “This is just a precaution, if the worst case scenario happens. It’s better to be over-prepared than under.”

“So you think we’re stuck like this?”

“No, I don’t.” And he’s being honest, or at least as honest as he can be when anxiety is eating away at his stomach. “Something happened that caused us to switch bodies, and so something can put us right again.”

“Do you think we’ll wake up like this tomorrow?”

“I hope not.”

“This is like a once-in-a-lifetime chance, though!” Hinata says, setting the pencil down and leaning back on his hands. “I think this could really be fun!”

Hinata’s enthusiasm is going to be the end of him; Kei is sure of that if nothing else. “You’re only saying that because you’re tall now.”

“Well, I mean, yeah.” Hinata shrugs.

Kei raises his eyebrow. “What do I get out of this exchange, then?”

There’s a twinkle in Hinata’s eyes when he responds. “My dashing good looks.”

Kei’s face is deadpan when he asks, “What’s so good about looking like a mandarin?”

The way Hinata’s face contorts in rage lets Kei know he’s won. “I don’t look like a mandarin! You’re just salty! Saltyshima!”

“Are you going to combine my name with every insult your tiny brain can think of?” Kei asks, hiding his irritation with a bored expression.

“Stingyshima! Dummyshima! Losershima!” Hinata punctuates each nickname by poking Kei’s forehead over and over.

Kei pushes his hand away and pulls the notebook back toward him. “Another rule: you can’t make up stupid nicknames for me.”

“Now you’re just taking advantage of this situation! I can make up stupid nicknames for you if I want to,” Hinata argues, grabbing the notebook and wrestling the pencil out of Kei’s hand.

“At least you admit they’re stupid.”

“Stupid nicknames for a stupid person,” he retorts, scribbling down something else. Kei peers down at the messy handwriting and tries to decipher what it says.

“‘Don’t be so emotionless?’” he reads. “I have plenty of emotions. You just have too many.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Hinata says. “You have to let your emotions out! You know, shout it out loud so everyone knows! Like _bwah!”_

Kei stares at the paper, then at Hinata, trying his best to bore a hole in his skull. “Your rules range from ‘play with your baby sister’ to ‘disrupt the local peace by screaming so loudly that you blow the eardrums of everyone around you.’” He scoffs. “I guess it makes sense for a simpleton like you.”

“Nuh-uh!” Hinata shakes his head wildly, knocking his glasses off kilter. “Just, you never show your emotions _at all_ , and you’re always so _humph_ and _bluhhh_.” He makes exaggerated stoic faces to go along with his description.

“So basically, you want me to unlearn everything I know about Japanese and resort to the nonsensical grunts of our ancestors?” Kei paraphrases with a snicker.

“Tsukishima, you make everything sound so horrible. Have you ever considered being less of a buttface?” He says it so openly and honestly and Kei once again curses his rotten luck that he just _had_ to be stuck with someone like Hinata. He couldn’t have magically switched places with someone he can tolerate, like Yamaguchi, or… or Yamaguchi.

“Give me that,” he says, tearing the notebook away from him and writing down another rule. “Don’t eat more than three meals a day.”

Hinata looks almost shell-shocked, like he’s just been told that dogs don’t actually exist. “What? Why not?”

“You eat way too much,” Kei explains as calmly as he can. “I doubt my body could handle you constantly shoving food down your throat.”

“How have you _survived_ this long? Are you even alive?” Hinata asks, his eyes wide and horrified with Kei’s eating habits, even if he’s still just following the recommended diet for all humans. He grabs Kei’s arms and shakes him a little, as if to try and cement his point through force.

“That’s philosophically debatable,” Kei answers in a monotone.

“Argh!” Hinata shouts, dropping Kei in favor of pressing his hands to his head. “Stop using weird phrases! It’s hard to keep up!”

“Get a better vocabulary and you won’t have this problem,” Kei drawls.

“You just need to stop trying to sound all high-and-mighty with your big words and funny phrases,” Hinata insists, running his hand through his hair and tugging at the locks in random places. “I hate hanging out with you because of that.”

“Because I know basic Japanese?”

Hinata huffs, glaring down at Kei. “Because you always act like you’re better than me.”

Kei wants to retort, he really does, but whatever comeback he had ready sticks in his throat as his mouth dries up and his eyes widen imperceptibly. Hinata’s looking at him with that intense, terrifying stare that he hates so much because it always screams for him to do better, work harder, and he doesn’t like that this time the underlying meaning is for him to be _nicer_ to someone he claims to hate.

So he gives up, like usual. “We’re not getting anywhere with this,” he says, closing the notebook with a long, dredging sigh. “The rules were stupid to begin with.”

“But you were the one who brought it up—”

“And now I’m saying it was a dumb idea,” he says quickly, cutting Hinata off. “Let’s just have one rule instead.”

“Okay…” Hinata says, dragging out the word because he’s not entirely sure what’s going on. “What’s the rule?”

“Don’t let anyone know we’ve switched bodies,” Kei says. “At any cost. Does that about cover it?”

Hinata looks off to the side for a second, deep in thought. As if there’s anything to think about. There’s a frown on his face and Kei can tell he doesn’t like how vague and ambiguous the rule is. Hinata’s face pinches and he opens his mouth as if he’s about to speak, then closes it just a second later. He repeats the action a few times while Kei watches with a raised eyebrow, his head propped up by his hand.

Finally, Hinata seems to settle on something and he sighs, his face losing that constipated look and smoothing out. He nods once and looks Kei right in the eye. “Good enough for me. I’ll do my best!” He pumps his fist like some kind of shounen anime protagonist and grins that hundred-watt smile Kei didn’t think was possible on his own face.

“Same here,” Kei says, even though the idea of acting like Hinata churns his stomach and sends a fresh spike of anxiety straight to his racing heart. “It’s getting late now. We should take our baths.”

Hinata freezes. His mouth falls open like he’s about to speak, but no words come out. Then he looks down at himself even as he hunches over and seems to shrink. “B–b–but Tsukishima…”

“Hm?” Kei meets Hinata’s petrified stare with his own bored one.

Hinata’s face flushes a deep, thick scarlet, and Kei can almost see steam coming out of his ears. He thinks his glasses are even fogging up, and Kei has to suppress a snicker. “I can’t—I mean, I couldn’t—it’s _your_ , uh, you know—!”

“Are you seriously worrying about that?” he asks. “It’s not like I _want_ you to see me… naked, but I’d rather you take care of my body than let it rot.” He sounds much more confident than he feels, but he keeps repeating his logic over and over in his head until it finally seems to stick.

Hinata looks less sure. “But that means… you’ll… you’ll see my, uh, _me_.”

“Yeah.”

The red on Hinata’s face doesn’t go away, but it seems to take on a more frustrated and angry quality than before. “Can’t you at least _pretend_ to be embarrassed?” he shouts, waving his arms in the air and almost knocking the books off of Kei’s table.

“There’s no point in being embarrassed,” Kei says, which is much better than admitting that his heart is pounding and his muscles are tense from even thinking about Hinata taking a bath in _his body_. “It’s not like we have a choice.”

“I could just wait until tomorrow!” Hinata counters desperately.

“And what if we don’t switch back by morning?” Kei says, voicing his own fears. He winces at the way his voice wavers.

“Then—! Then I’ll—!” Hinata breaks off, at a loss for words (for the first time in his life, perhaps). He sighs deeply, the flush on his cheeks receding with his breath. “Fine. I’ll take your stupid bath. But I’m not looking! I’m going to squeeze my eyes closed and everything!”

“I wasn’t asking you to _look,_ ” Kei says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“You better not look, either!”

“Whatever,” he scoffs.

“I’m serious!” Hinata jabs a finger at him, but Kei waves it away with a swat of his hand.

“Yeah, yeah, sure. I’ll make sure to keep your _purity_ intact,” he jokes with a smirk that has Hinata turning a deep, vicious red all over again.

“Wah! Tsuki—Tsukishima! Do you really have to say it like _that?”_ he screeches, burying his face in his hands to hide his expression.

Kei inspects his nails, quite pleased with himself for getting such a strong reaction out of him. Hinata groans loudly and dramatically, two adverbs that sum him up perfectly.

“You’re terrible,” he says, but he seems to have accepted the terms and conditions of their bath, so Kei has no intention of fighting him further. At least they’ll overcome this milestone and they can get on with their lives (as if that’s possible).

“The bathroom is down the hall and to the right. Don’t get lost,” Kei says, already standing up to pull out the futons. There’s an extra one in Akiteru’s room, if he remembers correctly, so he follows Hinata out of his room.

“I’m not going to get lost!” Hinata retorts in a childish, petulant voice. He stomps down the hall and turns left, and after just a few seconds, he jumps back out of Kei’s mom’s room with a loud yelp, turning around on his heel and finally walking into the proper room.

Kei chuckles despite himself as he gathers the futon from Akiteru’s closet and brings it into his own room. He lays it out next to his own, humming a song he’d heard earlier as Hinata bathes, the scream of the shower head echoing throughout the upstairs before turning off suddenly.

The ensuing silence is enough to call on Kei’s intrusive thoughts, and while he attempts to shoo them away, he ends up succumbing the first time he glances down at his hand, which is small and rough and unknown to him entirely.

He feels far too uncomfortable in his skin, which he supposes makes sense considering it’s not _his_ skin he’s wearing. Nevertheless, it’s constricting and too small and he feels off balance, as if he’ll fall over even just sitting down.

But even worse than the physical discomfort of the body swap is the interpersonal hell he’s been thrown into. To be mystically thrust into the most vulnerable position he can think of with someone like Hinata, who’s way too open with his emotions and thinks of nothing past his desire to improve himself to achieve his goals, is probably the most annoying and unmanageable part of it all. Spending time with Hinata on a normal day is enough to send Kei reeling, having his protective walls torn down without a care only to leave him, exhausted and broken, to rebuild his psyche and cling to the last threads of that mask he’s so desperate to project.

But now, if he has any hope of controlling the situation, he’ll have to spend as much time as he possibly can with Hinata, if only to make sure he doesn’t ruin Kei’s life irreparably.

This isn’t the first time Kei has lamented his rotten luck, and he’s almost certain it won’t be the last. He runs through scenarios in his head regardless because if he can’t fix the situation now, he can at least try to prevent the worst case scenario from happening.

(Like everyone finding out that they’ve swapped bodies, the vice principal hearing about it, and then suddenly Kei and Hinata are turned over to the government where they undergo painful and invasive experiments to find the root cause of body swapping, only for the results of the research to be used in biological warfare, a tool for corrupt politicians to dominate the world. Or something like that.)

He’ll have to spend an unfortunate amount of time around Hinata from now on, monitoring him and making sure he doesn’t do anything embarrassing. He’ll have to keep tutoring him, but more fervently now since his own grades are on the line. He hopes they can continue having sleepovers, because as much as he doesn’t like the idea of spending his nights with Hinata when he could be spending them with someone he likes (namely, Yamaguchi and _only_ Yamaguchi), he’s even more terrified of spending the night alone at Hinata’s house. And he certainly can’t stay here, because to the world, he’s no longer Tsukishima Kei.

He feels a discomforting sense of loss at that, like he doesn’t know who he’s supposed to be anymore. It makes his heart beat faster and his breath come quicker as he pores over the thought that he’s not himself anymore. He _feels_ like himself, sure, but to the world he’s been displaced and replaced entirely. “Himself” is nothing more than an immeasurable concept, unable to be proven into existence.

Still, he’s not ready to even _consider_ calling himself Hinata Shouyou. Because he’s not. He refuses to be.

Kei is roused from his intensely pessimistic daydreams by the sound of humming coming down the hall, getting louder as Hinata makes his way back toward the bedroom. He pops his head into the room with a wide grin, and Kei thinks that maybe his relatives were right all along and that he really _does_ resemble Akiteru in some small way. It’s in the way their mouths stretch and curve, the wrinkle of their noses, the slight squint in their eyes. Kei never really noticed it because he never really smiled before, not recently.

“All done!” Hinata says. “You can take a bath now!”

“Do your homework while I’m gone,” Kei instructs, pushing himself up and crossing the room in way more strides than it should have taken.

“Can’t you do it for me?” Hinata calls to Kei’s back as he walks down the hall away from Hinata.

“No way,” Kei says with a dismissive wave. “I’m going to bed as soon as I get done.”

“But Tsukishima, it’s _hard!”_ Hinata whines.

“Like I care.” And with that, he slams the door to the bath and leaves Hinata to his own devices.

He showers quickly and doesn’t let himself enjoy the bath because there’s no way that’s possible when he’s so jittery and hyper-aware of every movement he makes. It might be the shortest bath he’s taken in his life, because he tends to savor this time away from people, away from responsibilities, when he can just relax and pretend the outside world doesn’t exist. This time, though, the outside world brought its troubles into the sacred space, and Kei can’t help but feel the bath has been tainted.

When he leaves the bathroom, he can hear shuffling downstairs. It’s probably his mom, finally back from work and grocery shopping, and he has half a mind to call out to her, welcome her home, but his words stick when he remembers she’s never even met Hinata before. She wouldn’t recognize him, her own son.

His heart sinks.

So he decides against greeting her and trudges back to his room, dragging his feet a little more than usual. Hinata’s sitting at Kei’s table, his face scrunched up in an expression that resembles pure, hysterical agony as he stares down at his homework. He looks up when Kei enters, begging Kei to help him with wide, teary eyes.

“No.”

“But—!”

“No,” Kei repeats, covering his mouth with his hand as he yawns. The clock ticking on the wall claims that it’s only eleven o’clock, but the exhaustion in his mind insists that it’s just slow and the time is _actually_ closer to two in the morning. “Aren’t you tired?”

Hinata answers with a yawn of his own, a follow-up from Kei’s question, or perhaps an instinctual response from seeing Kei yawn. Either way, his grin is sleepy and doesn’t quite meet his eyes when he says, “A little bit. You don’t have nearly as much stamina as I do.”

Even now, Kei can feel the thrum of energy under his skin, and he recognizes that his exhaustion is far more emotional than it is physical. If he could overcome the fuzzy thoughts in his mind pulling him closer to the ground, closer to his futon, he thinks he could probably still run a marathon.

“We should go to bed,” Kei says, his mouth running on autopilot through the haze in his mind. His emotions are talking for him at this point, but he can’t bring himself to care.

“Do we have to?” Hinata whines, but he’s already abandoned the table, crawling away from his work and making his way to where Kei is sitting. “I’m not _that_ tired.”

“I am.” He intends for that alone to shut down whatever arguments Hinata might conjure up, and in turn shut him up so Kei can get some much-deserved rest, but instead Hinata drapes himself across Kei’s lap, arching his back and groaning loudly. Kei blinks down at him, unsure of what to make of the display. “Get off of me.”

 _“Tsukishimaaaaa,”_ he draws out, “you’re so _boring!”_

“Okay.” If being boring includes getting some goddamn sleep, then he’ll embrace that status wholeheartedly.

Hinata has other ideas, though. He rolls off Kei’s lap and shuffles around, a glint in his eyes as if he’s discovered something particularly exciting. Kei wants to ask what he’s thinking, but he doesn’t have time before Hinata grabs the pillow from his futon and slams it into Kei’s back, knocking him forward onto his face.

“What are you doing?” Kei demands, rounding on Hinata with a snarl.

Hinata ignores his anger, smiling brightly. “It’s a pillow fight! That’s what people do at sleepovers, right?”

“No. Absolutely not.” Kei tears the pillow from Hinata’s hands and throws it back onto the futon.

Hinata slumps over. “But I’ve never had a pillow fight before. It looked like fun.”

“Neither have I, but that doesn’t give me any reason to assault you with pillows.” Kei crosses his arms over his chest. “Besides, I didn’t invite you over to have fun. Or do you not realize how serious our situation is?”

The blank stare he receives tells Kei far more than he needed to know.

“Never mind.” He shakes his head, ignoring the way Hinata’s shaggy hair falls onto his face and brushes against his lashes. “It’s late, anyway. We should sleep.”

“But I haven’t finished my homework.”

“Have you ever finished your homework before?” Kei asks, leaning in when Hinata puckers his lips and glances off to the side.

“Well, no, but—but still!”

“Do it yourself, then.” Kei waves his hand to shoo Hinata away and in the same motion lies back on the soft blankets of his futon. “I’m going to bed.”

Hinata looks like he wants to say something, if his uncomfortable shifting around is any indication, but he decides against it before he even opens his mouth and nods instead. “Fine. Me, too. I’m sleepy!”

“Today has been exhausting,” Kei agrees. At least, part of it was. And that one small part contained enough excitement and action and terror to last him a lifetime. It’s definitely not something he ever wants to repeat. “Now go to bed.”

He doesn’t wait for Hinata to reply. Instead he pushes himself back up with as much force, he thinks, as it would take to lift a boulder, and he paces a few steps across the room to turn the light off. In the time it takes for his new (functional) eyes to adjust to the dark, he can hear Hinata shuffling around, probably getting ready for bed. He hears the tiny creaking of the hinges on his glasses, and he can’t help but touch his face, only to make contact with smooth skin where his glasses normally would be.

When he can see well enough (something that wouldn’t happen without the help of his glasses if he were still in his own body), he makes his way back to the futon and lays down.

Hinata already seems to be asleep, his eyes closed and his breathing even, and Kei thinks it’s the most serene he’s seen his face all day. Usually his face is pulled taut in a wide grin, laugh lines forming deep creases on his cheeks and squinted eyes making his crow’s feet more prominent. This is a different side to him, and though Kei is staring at his own face, just the knowledge that it’s Hinata’s soul underneath the skin is enough to stir his emotions. What emotions those are, he doesn’t exactly know.

Then Hinata snorts loudly, turning over with an exaggerated “mmrph,” so his back is facing Kei. He smacks his lips a few times and then falls silent, and Kei can no longer see his face, just the outline of him. It shatters whatever illusion Kei had seen, and suddenly he’s looking at nothing more than a body stolen from him by his obnoxious teammate, a teammate who thinks this whole thing is nothing more than a game and doesn’t understand exactly what they’ve been caught up in and how vulnerable they’ve become.

Kei can’t stand the sight of blond hair peeking out from under Hinata’s futon, so he rolls over, pointedly ignoring the other body in his room. Sleep won’t come easy, if the jittering of his nerves is anything to go by, but at least he can spend his hours of consciousness pretending that everything’s okay and that he’s not actually trapped inside someone else’s body.

Then Hinata starts snoring, completely destroying Kei’s fantasy and dragging him back into his horrible, cruel reality. He groans miserably and pulls the covers over his head, praying for a dreamless sleep.

Thirty minutes of overthinking and worrying later, he finally finds blissful unconsciousness.


	3. step 03. toss and spike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hinata looks conflicted. “But if you sit out, it’ll look weirder. I’ve never missed a day of volleyball practice in my life.”
> 
> Kei stares up at Hinata. “You really are a freak.”

Kei wakes to someone stirring next to him, tossing and turning in his sleep. The presence is enough to bring yesterday’s horrible, terrible events to the forefront of his mind, and he snaps open his eyes with a conflicted mixture of determination and abject terror. There’s a mound lying next to him, the covers of the futon pulled high above his head, and Kei can’t make out what Hinata looks like.

He takes a slow breath which is far shakier than he’d like, and he puts a hand to his face, trailing his fingers up his cheeks and feeling for something, anything that could tell him that everything’s okay.

Everything is decidedly _not_ okay.

He feels Hinata’s long tufts of orange hair knotted in between his fingers, and his heart stops. He lets his gaze peruse downward, only to take in the sight of a small body he’s not used to, his thin bare legs easily curled up to his stomach and tangled in the covers.

Hinata’s form shifts next to him, and Kei’s heart unfreezes only to start pounding wildly against his chest.

“Hinata,” Kei seethes through clenched teeth. When Hinata doesn’t move, Kei pokes him. “Hey, birdbrain.”

Hinata moans but makes no indication of waking up.

Kei leans over so blond curls are tickling his face. “Hinata!” he calls loudly, giving him a good, hard shove to the back.

“Wah!” Hinata shouts, rolling over onto his face and then to his other side so that he’s facing Kei. His eyes are still squeezed closed in protest. “What was that for, Stupidshima?”

“You weren’t waking up,” Kei answers simply. He pushes himself upright and feels around for his glasses, only to realize that they’re not exactly _his_ glasses anymore and his vision is actually pretty clear right now. At least there’s one good thing that came out of this exchange.

Hinata blinks, each time more rapidly and frantically than the last. His face scrunches up in brief worry until it suddenly relaxes. “Oh, I’m you,” he says so casually it makes Kei sick. “Tsukishima, you’re blind.”

“I’m aware.” He reaches over Hinata, pointedly pressing the heel of his hand into Hinata’s side and ignoring the indignant yelp that follows, and grabs his glasses, which had been haphazardly thrown to the floor the night before. “Here.”

Hinata’s grumbling when he snatches the glasses away and fixes them on his face, blinking a few more times to clear his vision. “That’s better.” He glances over at Kei and immediately starts laughing.

Kei narrows his eyes. “What?”

“Your hair,” Hinata says through tiny hiccups. “Or I guess it’s my hair. Is it my hair or your hair now? I don’t actually know how we’re supposed to talk about it.”

Kei ignores his rambling and reaches up to grab at the orange head of hair, but he can’t feel anything particularly out of the ordinary. It feels messy, which is exactly how it usually looks.

“I have terrible bedhead,” Hinata explains, casting another mirthful glance at his hair.

“You have terrible non-bedhead, too,” Kei says blandly.

“I do not!” Without warning, Hinata lunges toward him with both arms extended, trying to fix whatever bedhead he was talking about. Kei tries to fight back, but Hinata’s body is a twig with absolutely no strength, and so he eventually gives up the struggle and lets Hinata manhandle him. He doesn’t like it though, and he makes it obvious with arms crossed defiantly across his chest and a scathing glower that probably doesn’t look nearly as hateful as he’d like it to.

After a solid minute of Hinata playing with his hair, Kei’s had enough. He’s uncomfortable and grouchy and so he stares up through orange bangs and grits out, “Are you finished yet?”

Hinata is concentrated, his tongue sticking out in a way that might be cute if it wasn’t on Kei’s face, but when he hears Kei he beams down at him, ruffles the meticulously styled hair, and nods. “There! It’s perfect now.”

“Oh boy,” he deadpans. He wonders if Hinata realizes that ruffling his hair would effectively ruin all the effort he just put into it, but he holds his tongue lest he be barraged with Hinata’s terrifying determination once again. “Now are you going to get up, or do you want to be late for morning practice?”

“Ack!” Hinata scrambles to stand up, already stumbling in the direction of Kei’s closet before he’s upright. He begins rifling through Kei’s things, pulling out shirts and underwear and socks and just leaving them on the floor like some kind of animal, and Kei has half a mind to strangle him. He resists, however, and pushes himself up before gathering the clothes he’d discarded the night before.

He had been hopeful that sleeping would cause them to switch back. Or even better, he would wake up and realize that the previous day had been nothing more than a dream. With even more luck, Hinata wouldn’t be in his room, and the world would be at peace.

But the world is cruel and unforgiving to someone such as himself, and so Kei is forced to watch as Hinata tugs on his school uniform and fumbles around with long limbs he’s unused to, as he darts across the room like a bullet ricocheting off the walls, wearing _Kei’s_ body like a meatsuit and not even caring. If anything, Hinata is enjoying this because he finally gets to be tall.

And Kei, like always, gets the short end of the stick. Literally.

“Are we really going to school like this?” Hinata asks as he finally slows down to button up the uniform jacket, and Kei is once again disgusted by how okay he is with all of this. Hinata doesn’t sound worried or concerned that they’ve somehow magically _switched bodies_ at all. He doesn’t wait for an answer, though, and he goes back to running around the room to get ready, and Kei has to clench his jaw and ball his fists to keep him from straight-up murdering him right there.

“Do we have a choice?” he answers anyway, trying his best to turn his irritation into a sarcastic sneer. It works, but it doesn’t have the desired effect on Hinata.

“That means we get to go to practice!” Hinata bounces up and down on the balls of his feet, so beyond ecstatic that Kei feels nauseous. “I’m gonna be all _whoosh_ and _pah!”_ He jumps up and makes hitting motions with his arms, like he’s in the middle of a match inside his head.

Kei sighs. “Maybe I can sit this practice out.”

“What?” Hinata exclaims, showing an emotion other than excitement for what Kei thinks is the first time since they’d switched. “No! You can’t!” He grabs onto Kei’s arms and squeezes, looking down at him like he’d just suggested they drop out of school to become goat farmers in Scandinavia.

Despite the strong grip, Kei reaches up and pries Hinata’s fingers off of him, and he lets go surprisingly easily. “And why not? You’re a shrimp. I doubt I can play as well as you like… _this._ They’ll get suspicious.”

Hinata looks conflicted. “But if you sit out, it’ll look weirder. I’ve never missed a day of volleyball practice in my life.”

Kei stares up at Hinata. “You really are a freak.”

“Hey!” Hinata glares down at him, and Kei finds that it’s much more intimidating when his own face is making that expression than on Hinata’s. Not that he’s intimidated, of course. He’s seen that glare in the mirror more times than he can count, so he’s immune to it.

“Then we should get going, unless you want to break that streak of yours,” Kei says, already walking over to where they had dropped their bags by the wall last night. He almost grabs his own bag before remembering that he’s not in his own body, and he kicks himself for not realizing sooner. So instead, he grabs Hinata’s bag and slings it over his shoulder, surprised to find it so lightweight. But maybe he shouldn’t be so shocked, since Hinata’s track record with school isn’t exactly stellar.

Hinata scrambles toward him and picks up the only bag left on the ground, frowning down at it. He holds it out, as if he expects Kei to take it from him. “This is yours.”

Kei raises an eyebrow. “Yes, it is. And you’re me right now. Or at least people will think you are.” He wonders how true that is, considering that Hinata can’t keep a secret to save his life, or even tone down his enthusiasm for one minute. Kei realizes dully that this is going to be a bigger feat than he could have imagined.

“Oh, right!” Hinata says, perking up. He takes the bag back and slips it over his shoulders. He goes to open the door but hesitates at the last moment, his hand hovering uncertainly over the handle. “Is… are your parents home?”

“It’s just my mom, and probably,” Kei says, pushing past Hinata and opening the door himself. “I don’t eat breakfast, anyway. Just say goodbye and we can leave. She won’t even question us.” He ignores the rumbling in his stomach and instead considers stopping by Sakanoshita and grab something quick to eat.

“How do you _not_ eat breakfast?” Hinata chides, his horror at Kei’s statement overcoming his anxiety toward his family. He follows Kei into the hall and pads along behind him. “It’s the most important meal of the day! No wonder you're so skinny—”

“Kei?”

Shit. It’s his mom.

Hinata freezes behind Kei, shocked into silence. He grips Kei’s shoulders with all his strength as he cowers behind him in the stairwell, too afraid to continue downstairs.

“It’s my mom,” Kei whispers, peeling Hinata off of him. “Just say good morning and we can leave.”

“Good—good morning!” Hinata calls, tripping over the words. Kei grabs Hinata’s hand and all but drags him down the stairs, hurrying past the kitchen so they won’t be stopped. “I’m leaving!”

Kei goes to put his shoes on as fast as he can, then fumbles when he realizes he’d grabbed his own shoes instead of Hinata’s. The error is grave enough to cost them their peace.

“Good morning!” his mom says brightly, poking her head into the hallway and smiling. Her eyes fall on Kei, and he wishes he could disappear. He has no idea what to do. “Hinata-kun, it’s nice to finally meet you. Kei kept you locked up in his room all night.”

Kei swallows. “It’s, um, it’s nice to meet you, Tsukishima-san,” he says, breathless. “Sorry for intruding.”

Her smile widens. “Do you boys want some breakfast?”

“N-no thank you!” Hinata says, bowing deeply. Kei’s stomach gurgles, but he forcefully shakes his head.

His mom furrows her brow and glances between them. “Are you sure…?” she asks, confused and concerned, probably by Hinata’s stupid behavior.

“We’re sure,” Kei says, slipping the right shoes on this time. He reaches up and grabs Hinata’s shirt, dragging him out the door. Hinata waves awkwardly to Kei’s mom before he passes through the threshold, and Kei can see worry crease her forehead right before the door closes.

“That was close,” Hinata says, breathing out a long, hearty sigh of relief. Kei reaches up and smacks the back of his head.

“It was only close because you croaked under pressure, dumbass,” he says. “She probably thinks I’ve gone crazy.”

“Well, not _you,_ but—”

“I get it,” Kei says flatly, cutting him off. “Let’s just go.”

“Yeah, okay!” Hinata pays no mind to the previous events, shaking them off like they never even happened. Instead he starts off in the general direction of Karasuno.

Kei hurries to take the lead next to him because Hinata’s unfamiliar with the area, and somehow they fall into something of a peaceful quiet. It’s not exactly silent, since Hinata is humming something tuneless under his breath, but even that doesn’t irritate Kei nearly as much as it probably should.

He’s getting used to the little monster’s company. How troublesome.

Although, he supposes it’s convenient for now. They’re practically stuck with each other until they can figure out how to return to normal, after all. If Kei can despise the time they spend together a little less, then it’ll make his life much easier.

Karasuno High School looms in the distance, and with every step they take closer to the front entrance, Kei’s stomach sinks lower. He’s no longer so certain they should even be _going_ to school in their current situation, much less with such a hazy grip on what they’re supposed to do to keep prying eyes off of them. He’s still waiting to be jostled awake from a coma and be told that this was all just a dream, but so long as that doesn’t happen, he’ll have to grin and bear it.

And he does, unfortunately, mean _grin_ and bear it, because if he’s supposed to stay under the radar, he’ll have to act as close to Hinata as he can possibly muster, and that means going through his whole sunshine-happy-happy performance, too.

Gross.

Kei can’t even remember the last time he smiled genuinely. He steals a glance upward at Hinata, who’s still humming to himself in the silence around them. There’s a soft smile on his lips even now, pulling the corners of his mouth up in a way that brings light to a face Kei has always found too dull on its own.

Leave it to Hinata to improve something that isn’t even his.

As they approach the front entrance, Kei feels the prickle of anxiety on his skin, but they pass through the gates and head toward the gym without anyone noticing anything. He can’t help but feel like the differences between them are obvious, what with the way Hinata swings his arms at his side and Kei’s own mechanical movements that are so starkly contrasting each other. But of course no one would think anything’s different. Body swaps are fictional.

Or at least to most people they are.

The point is, no one would even come close to thinking they’ve somehow switched bodies. It should be impossible. So they’re safe. He doesn’t have to worry about anyone finding out.

“What happens if someone finds out?” Hinata asks, as if reading his mind.

“They won’t,” Kei says, far more casually than he feels. “This situation is ridiculous. No one would believe it even if we _told_ them.”

“I guess you’re right,” Hinata says, nodding firmly. “We’re here.”

Kei’s chest clenches with worry when he looks up to see the club room before them. He can hear the garbled voices of their teammates talking as they leave the room and head down the stairs, and Kei once again wants to turn around and go home (to his house? to Hinata’s? neither is ideal).

“We should skip,” Kei says, the words coming out before he registers it in his mind.

Hinata scoffs and looks down, offended. “I already told you we can’t! And besides, if we skip then I can’t be all _pchoo_ with your height! I wanna block and spike!”

“You suck at blocking anyway,” Kei counters. “My height isn’t going to change your skill.”

“Suckyshima,” Hinata grumbles, but he doesn’t back down. “I’m going up. You better follow me.”

As much as he _really_ doesn’t want to, Kei sighs and starts after Hinata, following him up the stairs and into the club room.

And as luck would have it, he runs face-first into the one person he really didn’t want to see like this.

He stares up (and up and up) into the scowling, irritated face of Kageyama.

“Hinata,” he says directly to Kei. “You’re late.”

Hinata opens his mouth to speak, but Kei jabs him with his elbow, effectively shutting him up. “Sorry,” he mumbles in Hinata’s place. “We got held up this morning.”

“We?” Kageyama tilts his head to the side, squinting his eyes as he desperately tries to follow the conversation he started. Then, reaching some conclusion, he points an accusing finger at Hinata. “You were hanging out with _this_ guy?”

Hinata takes a step back, uncomfortable with the sudden attention on him. “Yeah? Is that a problem? You wanna fight?”

But Kei ignores Kageyama’s jab at him, even if it’s not currently _at_ him, and smirks. “What’s the matter, king? You want me all to yourself?”

Hinata blanches beside him and pushes him lightly, a reminder that maybe Kei should act less like _himself_ when talking in front of others. But Kei can’t take it back now, so he ignores Hinata’s worry and stares down Kageyama, daring him to respond.

Kageyama’s eyebrows raise into his hairline and his mouth falls open, and he looks between them as if he’s trying to solve a puzzle. But the poor idiot couldn’t solve a sudoku puzzle, much less something this complex and unnatural. He seems to realize it, too, and he shakes his head and resolves to glare at him. “We’re practicing the new quick today. And don’t call me king, asshole.”

Kei can feel Hinata practically vibrating next to him, bouncing on the balls of his feet with all previous apprehension lifted. The excitement is palpable around him, and yet there’s a bubble of Kei’s anxiety that completely insulates him from the full force of that exuberance.

“Oh. Uh, right,” he says as convincingly as he can possibly make it, which is to say not convincing at all. Kageyama peers down at him, and Kei feels way too vulnerable under the scrutiny. He doesn’t like feeling vulnerable.

Kageyama squints, as if he’s still trying to figure out what’s wrong with them, but he gives up quickly enough with a shake of his head. “Hurry up.” He pushes a volleyball into Kei’s stomach and brushes past him with one last glare at Hinata, heading out the door and toward the gym. And then Kei and Hinata are alone again.

Hinata groans. “I wanna practice spiking!” he complains, slouching over as he shrugs his uniform off to change into the club T-shirt.

Kei smirks. “If you’re so intent on it, then why not tell Kageyama the truth? I’m sure he’d love to spike with you.”

“You really think so?” Hinata whips around, nearly knocking his glasses off his face. His eyes shine with glossy innocence and his mouth hangs open in a wide, toothy smile, as if he didn’t even register the sarcasm in Kei’s voice. He probably didn’t.

“Absolutely not,” Kei deadpans. “And weren’t you the one saying we had to act like each other? I don’t smile like that.”

“You mean you don’t smile _at all,”_ he corrects, pushing down on Kei’s head and ruffling his hair. He thinks Hinata’s getting way too comfortable with this new height difference.

“I smile,” Kei protests weakly, if only to save face.

“Your smiles are almost as terrifying as Kageyama’s,” Hinata says, mimicking a terrible, grotesque grin that subconsciously sends a chill down Kei’s spine. “But not quite.”

“He’s not _that_ intimidating,” Kei says.

“Oh, no,” Hinata says, shaking his head furiously. “You’ve never been on the receiving end of that smile. When he’s telling you ‘good job!’ It always feels like he’s holding himself back from strangling me.”

“I would be, too, if I had a partner like you,” Kei says blandly.

Hinata pokes his lip out. “You’re such a jerk, Tsukishima.”

Kei waves his hand dismissively. “Yeah, whatever. Now go get ready, or you’ll miss your chance to be a normal height for a volleyball player.”

Hinata blanches and rushes to finish changing. “You’re right!” he says, tugging off his pants and swapping them for shorts. He’s out the door well before Kei is even finished changing, and he wonders where in the world Hinata gets all that energy from.

Kei follows Hinata into the gym, trying his best to blend in with the scenery. If no one notices him, he won’t have to play. Or rather, that’s what he keeps trying to tell himself.

But all eyes settle on him as soon as he walks through the double doors, and Kei retroactively curses Hinata’s need to be the center of attention.

He’s instantly bombarded by Nishinoya and Tanaka, who are already screaming this early in the morning. It’s sickening, really, but it’s nothing he’s not used to. He’s put up with them long enough that he’s come to expect anything from them.

He plasters a smile on his face and hopes it doesn’t look as irritated as he feels, and he holds his arms at his sides when hands start roaming across his shoulders and down his back and through his hair. He’s never been a touchy-feely kind of person, and this is way too much for his comfort, but he grits his teeth and bares it because, really, there’s nothing else he _can_ do.

“You feelin’ okay, Shouyou?” Nishinoya asks, leaning way too close in Kei’s face to inspect him.

“Just a little tired,” Kei forces out, hoping it sounds natural.

“You? Tired?” Tanaka laughs and claps a hand on Kei’s back, knocking him forward. “Who are you and what have you done with Hinata?”

Kei freezes up, instantly in panic mode. But he pushes through the sudden shot of adrenaline and reminds himself that they’re just joking, they’re just poking fun at him, they’re not serious because this isn’t _Invasion of the Body Snatchers,_ this is real life and no one would seriously believe something as fantastical as body swaps (unless they’re crazy conspiracy theorists, which Kei is pretty sure they aren’t).

So he shoves down his panic and tries to laugh along, but it sounds more mechanical than he’d have liked. He’s thankful that no one’s paying close enough attention to him to really give it any thought, and they leave him be as easily as they came.

Crisis averted.

He spares a glance toward Hinata to see him shuffling awkwardly on the other side of the gym, Yamaguchi hovering around him worriedly. No one else is paying him any attention, which is exactly what Kei would prefer right now. But introversion is not part of Hinata’s personality, and of course Hinata is not used to being ignored. So he’s restless.

Kei clenches his hands into fists. This really was the worst possible situation they could have gotten themselves into. They’re complete opposites, and there’s no way they can keep up this act that they’re each other. Someone will find out eventually, and then—

Well, he’s not sure what would happen then, but he doesn’t really want to know, either. He’s absolutely content to live in blissful ignorance to what would become of their secret being found out.

He just hopes that he’ll wake up tomorrow morning to find everything having corrected itself. (But that worked out so well last time, didn’t it?)

Somehow, in the far recesses of his brain, he already knows that this is going to be a long-term thing. He ignores that part of his mind mercilessly.

“Hinata.”

Kei looks up to see Kageyama in front of him.

“I’m tossing.”

“Right.”

He’s spiked plenty of Kageyama’s tosses before, and he’s seen the mechanics behind his freak tosses to Hinata. He knows what to expect.

He doesn’t know, however, if he can perform Hinata’s freakish jumps and stupidly fast quicks.

He doesn’t know if he’s ever in his life put as much effort into something as Hinata does every single day.

The team breaks up into sections for practice, with Hinata pulled across the court to practice blocking. Kei sneers at the barely concealed grin on Hinata’s face, his tense shoulders, his clenched fists. Then he turns back to Kageyama and sighs inwardly about the hell he’s about to go through.

Would it really be so bad to drop the act and tell everyone the truth?

(Not like anyone would believe him, but it would at least get him out of practice, if not sent to the school nurse.)

He follows Kageyama to one side of the net, where all the other wing spikers are chatting amongst themselves. Kei feels wildly out of place, even if he, before the switch, had spent plenty of practice time on this side. But now the offense and defense are strictly segregated because _he’s_ supposed to be spiking, and on any other day, he’d be on the receiving end of Hinata’s terrifying and aggravating attacks.

He doesn’t have time to think longer on that, though, because he feels a hand on his back push him forward, and then he’s running toward the net as Kageyama tosses the ball in the air, directly in front of Kei.

He coils his muscles and crouches low, taking one last breath before he springs up as high as he can, hand poised and ready to spike it down to where Hinata is waiting with raised arms.

He’s flying.

He’s heard Hinata say that before, but he’s never quite understood what it meant. But now the air is rushing against his face and his feet are so high off the ground and he feels like the breath has been stolen from his lungs, and he’s _flying._

Kei’s heart is beating so fast as he looks around at the gym and sees it from a view he should be used to, but it’s so different and he finally understands why Hinata’s always pushing himself higher and higher.

Then the volleyball collides with his face and he’s sent crashing back to the ground, skidding across the floor as everyone stares.

Kei groans audibly as he pushes himself up, his arms shaking under his weight. There’s only a beat of silence on the court in which Kei thinks that everyone will pretend that didn’t happen, and then laughter erupts from next to him.

Tanaka is doubled over with tears in his eyes as he hoots and hollers, watching Kei struggle with unbridled glee. “Oh, man, you should have seen the look on your face!” he howls, and he’s joined by Nishinoya almost instantly, who’s already on the ground from laughing so hard.

“Hinata, dumbass!” Kageyama shouts, and there’s a rage on his face that Kei has never once been the recipient of, despite all the times he’s intentionally riled him up. “Why didn’t you hit the ball?”

“Sorry,” Kei says, grimacing against the pain on the side of his face.

“Are you all right, Hinata?” Azumane asks, peering down at him. It’s still uncomfortable to look up at everyone he’s grown so used to looking down on, but he hides the irritated furrow of his brow by shaking his head vigorously.

“I’m fine. Let’s go again,” he insists, and he thinks that maybe Hinata really has rubbed off on him in some small way.

He’ll have to use that to his advantage.

“You better get this one,” Kageyama threatens, but he’s lost his fire. Kei feels about as determined as Kageyama looks, and he takes a breath to steady himself, ignoring the throbbing in his cheek.

Another toss.

Kei watches the ball fall into Kageyama’s hands, and then he takes off running. He’s not sure where it will end up, but if he knows anything about Hinata’s and Kageyama’s freakish combo, it’ll fall right into Kei’s hand when he goes to spike it. Assuming he can jump that high.

Pushing his self-doubt aside, he crouches low and then pushes up on the balls of his feet, jumping as high as he’s able.

This time, he ignores the height and the view around him and focuses on the ball. It’s coming closer, and he feels like the world slows down to a crawl as the perfect toss comes straight toward his outstretched hand.

It grazes against his fingertips and bounces carelessly to the floor even before Kei himself lands with a squeak of his shoes.

Kageyama growls at him. “Jump higher!”

 _Higher?_ Kei wants to groan again, but he stifles it before it can escape his throat. He already felt like he was flying; how can he possibly go higher?

“Hinata’s really off his game today,” he hears Yamaguchi whisper from across the net. He whips around and glares at his friend. There’s no way Yamaguchi would know that the tall blond shifting uncomfortably next to him _isn’t_ Kei, but Kei can’t help but feel something like betrayal strike his heart. If he knew the truth, he wouldn’t even dare make such a comment.

He feels the fire of determination burn in his chest.

“One more.”

He realizes dully that he’s taking up the time that the other wing spikers are supposed to have for practicing their own spikes, but he’s not in the mood to care. He’s frustrated: at Kageyama, at Yamaguchi, at the ball, and at himself for not being able to reach it. He wonders if this is how Hinata feels all the time, if this is his constant battle against height.

He jumps again. It’s first tempo, since he’s not yet sure how to pull off a minus tempo quick. But he feels like if he keeps practicing like this, with frustration leaving him hungry for victory, he’ll get it down.

The ball comes at him again, and he swing his arm as hard as he can.

His palm connects with the leather, sends the ball flying.

Right into the net.

Kei grits his teeth, and he hears laughter that’s way too familiar and yet totally unknown to him at the same time. He looks up through orange bangs to see Hinata gripping his chest, his shoulders shaking with every hiccup.

“You havin’ trouble over there, _shrimpy?”_ Hinata laughs, getting a kick out of finally being on the other side of the height battle. He’s having way too much fun with this, and it irritates Kei to no end.

Kei pointedly ignores Hinata’s jabs and turns back to Kageyama. “One more.”

Kageyama narrows his eyes and he looks like he’s about to argue back, but he decides against it at the last moment and readies himself for another toss.

Kei steps back in preparation, takes a breath, and then pushes off into a sprint that’s far faster than anything he’s done on his own. If he were in his own body, even with his own long legs, he wouldn’t be able to match this speed.

He jumps, and the ball comes straight to him.

His hand meets the ball, and he spikes it, straight over the net. He feels a surge of pride well up in his throat until a blur of skin passes in front of him and the ball is blocked, dropping uselessly onto the floor.

When Kei lands, he glares up at Hinata.

Hinata has stars in his eyes and slack in his jaw as he stares at his hand wondrously, probably amazed by his own reach. Then he looks back to Kei and grins, not malicious or taunting, but truly, unabashedly proud.

Kei frowns.

If he even wants to match Hinata’s usual talent, he’ll have to work harder than he’s ever worked before. And yet Hinata, in their current situation, will only continue to surpass both of their previous skills because he has the drive and the hunger that Kei’s only just started to develop.

He’ll never win. He wonders how Hinata hasn’t given up until now.

But he’s known this all along. He’s no match for Hinata, who starves for growth and victory more than anything else, who pushes past all stacked odds to become better, stronger, faster. Kei isn’t motivated in the same way Hinata is, and he’s long since given up trying to stay ahead.

And yet he finds himself wanting to win as he stares at Hinata. His heart is beating fast and there’s sweat on his brow and he’s never wanted anything more than to wipe that smile off Hinata’s face.

If they aren’t changing back any time soon, then Kei will just have to do what he can.


	4. step 04. operation: save hinata

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How are we supposed to get back to normal?”
> 
> “I may be smarter than you, but I _promise_ my class does not have body swaps in the curriculum.”

As soon as the teacher (whose name Kei doesn’t care to learn) steps out of the classroom, leaving everyone else to their own devices for lunch, Kei pushes himself away from Hinata’s desk, ignoring the shouts from Hinata’s friends, and rushes out of the room, making a beeline toward class 1-4. He hopes that Hinata’s still there and that Yamaguchi is distracted by something so he can get in and get out easily enough.

He breezes past what few people are mingling in the hallways. Almost all of them are significantly taller than him, but Kei ignores that fun little fact and continues down the hall until he’s standing in the doorway of his usual classroom. He easily locates Hinata, who is, to Kei’s utter dismay, in the middle of some kind of nervous breakdown while Yamaguchi attempts to have a casual conversation with him.

All right, then. Operation: Save Hinata is a go.

He traipses into the classroom like he owns the place and stops at his desk, peering only slightly down his nose so he’s looking Hinata in the eye. Yamaguchi is surprised, but he smiles easily and immediately beckons for Kei to take a seat next to him.

“Hey, Hinata!” Yamaguchi says with a smile, already pulling a chair closer to them. “Are you here to study or something?”

Kei does his best imitation of Hinata’s smile—which is little more than an uncomfortable snarl—and shakes his head. “Sorry, I actually wanted to talk to, uh, Tsukishima.”

This is horrible. The worst thing ever. He’s so uncomfortable and awkward and he can barely think straight, and his words tumble off his tongue like he’s spitting out wasps.

Hinata breaks his train of thought by standing up suddenly, causing the chair to screech back. His face blooms with pink but he makes no attempt to even cover it up, instead boring holes into Kei’s head as he stares intently at him. “Hi-Hinata! Good timing! We have, uh, that one thing to do!”

Yamaguchi looks suspiciously between them, but Kei pointedly ignores him because he does not want to deal with this right now, no sirree. So instead he latches on to Hinata’s arm and drags him away, only faltering when Hinata stumbles a little bit.

“Where are you going?” Yamaguchi says, standing up to follow them. Kei falters, suddenly too aware that if he takes Hinata away, Yamaguchi won’t have anyone else to eat with. But at the same time, he doesn’t exactly have the luxury of sympathy for those privileged people who are still happily nestled within their own bodies.

“Sorry!” Hinata calls out, but he doesn’t sound sorry at all. At least they’re on the same wavelength for once. “It’s something we have to, um, do alone! Just the two of us. Together. Without you.”

_“What?”_ Yamaguchi sounds almost terrified now, and Kei doesn’t even want to _begin_ thinking about what he might have gotten from Hinata’s drivel.

“Shut up,” Kei snaps under his breath. “You’re rambling.”

“Oh right. Whoops.” Hinata shrugs and scurries after Kei, leaving Yamaguchi alone and confused in the classroom behind them.

Kei doesn’t let up his grip on Hinata’s arm until they’ve safely gotten outside into the courtyard. There’s no one around, thankfully, and so with a sigh of relief he lets go of Hinata and leans back against the wall, finally allowing himself to relax for the first time that day.

“Tsukishima, your classes are too hard. I can feel my brain melting out of my ears,” Hinata whines before Kei can even speak, lolling his head back and moaning long and low to convey his acute suffering. Kei ignores him.

“Your classes are too easy,” he says. “I can’t believe you need me to walk you through your homework.”

“It’s hard!” Hinata asserts, pinching his face up. The expression looks weird on Kei’s face, but that’s no different than any other expression Hinata’s made today. “You’re so smart, I can’t keep up.”

“Is that your way of buttering me up to help you with your homework?” Kei guesses, unamused entirely.

“Technically, it’s _your_ homework, but…” Hinata grins hopefully, his eyes bright and pleading behind Kei’s glasses.

He sighs. “Whatever, sure. Give me my phone.” He fishes Hinata’s phone out of his own pocket and shoves it into his hands. “Tell your mom you’re coming to my house again today.”

“Yeah,” Hinata says, flipping open his phone to send the email. Kei is a little relieved to have his phone back, though he wouldn’t admit it to someone like Hinata. Toting around Hinata’s belongings all day has only made him feel uncomfortable and exposed, and now that he has at least one thing that belongs to him, he feels a little more at peace.

“We probably can’t keep this up, though,” Kei says. “You don’t have any of your clothes at my house, so we’ll have to split up at some point.”

To be honest, there’s not much that scares him more than that, and that fear is reflected on Hinata’s face as well. Hinata squirms as he types out his message. “I’ll have to go to your house alone.”

“I’ll have to go to yours. It’s no different.” It may not be different, but Kei is not someone who steps out of his comfort zone regularly, and the thought of going to live at someone else’s house sends spikes of nerves rushing up and down his spine. He hopes it’s just temporary.

Hinata’s phone chimes with a _whoosh_ effect to signal that his email has gone through successfully. “How are we supposed to get back to normal?”

“I may be smarter than you, but I _promise_ my class does not have body swaps in the curriculum.” He doesn’t look at Hinata, instead scrolling through his email to check for anything new. He remembers that Yamaguchi is still his only friend, but he does see an unread email from him asking if he’s okay. Since he can’t exactly ignore him without raising a fuss, he types out a quick response, telling Yamaguchi not to worry, and snaps his phone shut so he doesn’t have to think about it anymore.

He’s reluctant to give his phone back, but Hinata holds his out in front of him, so readily giving it up that Kei has no choice but to comply, if only because he refuses to be the weaker and more sentimental of the two. They make the switch, and Kei is left feeling alone and uncomfortable again.

“I think we should tell Yamaguchi,” Hinata says suddenly, startling Kei with the sudden change in topic.

“Hah? Why?” If he can help it, he’d rather no one know about this, as hard as it is to deal with alone.

“Isn’t he your friend?” Hinata asks, blinking down at him. “He’d want to know.”

_“I_ don’t want him to know,” Kei says firmly.

“He knows something’s wrong,” Hinata explains. “He kept asking if I was feeling okay, and he seemed suspicious that you weren’t playing very well at morning practice.”

“Maybe if you learned how to act like a normal person instead of the goddamn energizer bunny, he wouldn’t have noticed anything.”

“I’m serious!” Hinata whines. “He’s really smart, too, and he knows something’s going on. And besides, he’s your best friend, right? He’d definitely believe us if we told him.”

The easiest way to tell how well someone knows Yamaguchi is to listen to their assumptions about him. Most of them involve him being kind or polite or mild-mannered, and under most circumstances, they wouldn’t necessarily be _wrong._ These same people would look at his and Kei’s friendship with suspicious or even worried glances, unsure of how two people so starkly different were able to come together as friends.

But there’s a reason Yamaguchi has been his best (only) friend since grade school, and it has nothing to do with how nice and sweet Yamaguchi is. He may be those things, sure, but their relationship wouldn’t have lasted long if that’s all there was to him.

So Kei snorts with all the sarcastic indignance he can muster. “Yamaguchi would double over laughing and tease us about it for the rest of our lives.”

Hinata seems to think this over for a moment before responding. “Well, we definitely can’t tell Kageyama. He’s too stupid to figure it out, anyway. Maybe the captain…”

“We aren’t telling anyone,” Kei says before Hinata starts weighing the pros and cons of telling their embarrassing secret to the entire team. “We’ll figure it out on our own.”

“But what if they have ideas for how to get back to our own bodies?” Hinata asks. “The captain and Sugawara-san are really smart. They would probably know what to do!”

To be honest, the very thought of anyone else finding out about this makes Kei sick to his stomach. Even having Hinata in the know is almost too much for him to handle, even if there’s absolutely no way around that. “I want this to stay a secret,” he says, a little more forcefully this time. “I don’t know what would happen if anyone else knew we’ve swapped bodies, and I don’t particularly want to find out.”

“Are you worried?” It’s not teasing or backhanded (though it sounds that way in Kei’s voice), and Kei is taken aback by the sudden sincerity and concern that Hinata is showing.

“No.” Not that Kei would ever let Hinata know he was moved by him in any way. “I’m more worried that you’ll trip over your own feet and land yourself in the hospital. I don’t want to deal with any broken bones.”

“Jerkyshima,” Hinata growls. “I’m not going to hurt your body!”

“Oh, right, because then you wouldn’t be able to play volleyball.” Kei sneers up at him, and Hinata wrinkles his nose in annoyance.

“You’re wrong!” he exclaims, throwing his arms wide. “I don’t want to hurt your body because you’re my friend.” He huffs and looks away, but not before Kei catches a light dusting of pink across his cheeks. It’s amazing, he thinks, just how open and honest Hinata can be about literally everything, even when he’s embarrassed to admit it. He’s not used to this kind of sincerity, and he’s not really sure what to do with it now that he’s forced to confront it.

“Oh? We’re friends now, are we?” Kei smirks as Hinata turns on him, growling loudly.

“Of course we are!” he insists. “Besides, it’s not like we have a choice anymore, really.”

Friends. Hm. He’s still not entirely sold on that idea. “We could always be fated rivals in a tentative, easily broken truce. That would certainly add some drama to this whole thing.”

Hinata thinks it over. “No, I think that’s me and Kageyama. I still haven’t beaten him once and for all yet. But with your legs, I could definitely win against him in a race…” A smile splits his face and a determined sparkle shines in his eyes.

Before he loses him on that train of thought, Kei interjects. “I can’t run that fast.”

Hinata deflates immediately.

“You were the _worst_ person to switch places with,” he complains. “You’re so tall, but you completely waste it! I’d rather swap with Rooster Head.”

“With Kuroo-san?” Kei frowns. “I hate that you’re comparing me to him.”

“He’s better than _you,_ ” Hinata argues.

“Again, I hate that you’re comparing me to him. And that he’s winning.”

“Maybe you should get a better personality, Suckyshima.” Hinata pushes down on Kei’s head to emphasize his point. “Then you’d win for sure.”

“Oh, would I?” Kei raises an eyebrow. “Are you admitting that I’m better in every way, except for my _dreadful_ personality?”

Hinata squints. “Maybe.”

“Ah, how unfortunate for you then, that you got stuck with me and my terrible, no-good personality.” He has to strain to keep a straight face, but the sarcasm drips off his tongue with scathing heat. Hinata groans and nods.

“You’re right, I’m really unlucky,” he agrees, and Kei can’t hide his grimace anymore. “Maybe hanging out with me will turn you into a better person. But then, that _could_ be asking too much of you.”

The comment strikes Kei’s heart like an arrow, and he wants nothing more than to beat Hinata within an inch of death. Unfortunately, he’s parading around in Hinata’s body, and beating him up would just be doing damage to himself in one way or another. That, and Hinata is the weakest one on the team. He doubts he could even leave a mark in this state.

Kei scoffs, stifling his irritation. “How is hanging out with you going to make me a better person? Your personality is hardly any better.”

“Tsukishima, you’re so mean!” Hinata yells too loudly, waving his arms wildly. Kei has to dodge the long limbs so he’s not hit right in the face. “I have a sparkling personality, thank you very much.”

“You may have a _sparkling personality,_ but your aim still sucks,” Kei says, ducking out of the way of another stray limb. “Even when you’re in my _perfect_ body, you still flail about like an idiot.”

“P-perfect?” Hinata sputters, choking on his own spit.

“You said it yourself: I’m better than everyone.” Kei puffs out his chest in an overexaggerated, sarcastic, self-aggrandizing manner, taunting Hinata with his smirk.

“I meant your _body_ is better than everyone else’s!” Hinata counters, clenching his fists at his side.

“So you’re saying you’ve spent enough time checking me out that you can compare me to others?” Kei says blandly, but his mind is racing in ways he’s not exactly used to. When did this conversation take such a turn?

Hinata seems just as much taken aback, as his face heats up and turns cherry red from embarrassment. “I–I don’t! You’re just—well, you’re taller than everyone else on the team, and I’ve always been jealous of that!” He says it with such conviction that Kei can feel his own face flushing from secondhand embarrassment.

“Huh,” he says, suddenly desperate to change the conversation. “Well. I don't really care. You can look at me all you want if you like me so much. Although now you don’t really have a choice, so I guess you got lucky this time.”

Hinata shows no signs of calming down. “I did not get lucky! I have the worst luck! You suck, Tsukishima!”

“Yes, yes, I’m horrible, truly the scum of the earth,” Kei says, waving his hand dismissively. Hinata looks like he’s about to retaliate, but the warning bell rings throughout the school, signaling the end of their lunch hour.

Hinata turns to go back inside, but he stops at the doorway. “I still think we should tell Yamaguchi. I don’t think I can keep up the act around him.”

“That’s because you’re not trying hard enough,” Kei says, following after him.

“No, it’s because he knows you too well.” The comment stops Kei dead in his tracks, and he’s not sure how to respond. It makes sense, of course, but it also feels like he’s missed something important for all the years he’s known Yamaguchi. The thought unnerves him, and he’s not sure what to make of it or how to respond to it. So he doesn’t.

“We’re gonna be late for class,” he mumbles, pushing past Hinata as forcefully as he can and burying his words within the deep recesses of his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i truly don't remember this chapter being so short but like, i also can't be assed to do anything about it so. see you thursday uwu


	5. step 05. bad karma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re giving up practice to go hang out with _that guy?”_ Kageyama says, his voice getting louder and angrier the longer he speaks. “Are you insane?”
> 
> He must be, Kei thinks. He must be absolutely, completely insane to even consider hanging out with Hinata.

Afternoon practice is in all respects worse than the morning. The initial shock of Hinata’s natural agility and speed have worn off, and now all that’s left is Kei’s burning hatred toward Hinata’s short stature. And they’re still practicing quicks.

Kei wonders just how Hinata got it into his head that he would ever be able to be the ace of a volleyball team.

After he misses another spike, Kei decides that his least favorite number is one hundred sixty-two.

He lands on the court with a squeak of his gym shoes and growls to himself, frustrated beyond belief that nothing he tries is working. He’d rather be benched, or at least rotated so that Azumane or Tanaka can get in a few spikes. But Kageyama was insistent that he had to keep going until he got at least one good quick in.

He can sense Kageyama’s frustration, as well, but it seems to be more directed toward himself. It’s a weird feeling, since he’s used to the king’s overbearing outbursts toward him. With Hinata, though, he seems calmer, more focused. They’re equal partners.

It’s almost a nice feeling, to have a partner.

Although he’s not _his_ partner, and he refuses to think of someone as self-centered and egocentric as Kageyama as such. Hinata can keep him.

“You can jump higher than that,” Kageyama says, marching over to him with conviction. It’s not angry or scolding, but rather a statement of fact. Kei isn’t used to this somewhat softer side of Kageyama, and it’s almost unnerving.

He swallows his own frustration and stands up straight. “I must be having an off day,” he says brightly, smiling with that sarcastically sweet grin that always gets on everyone’s nerves. On Hinata’s face though, it must look much more sincere, as Kageyama only stares at him, chewing at his lip while he thinks.

“You can’t afford an off day,” Kageyama says. Kei clenches his fists at his side, and suddenly he understands exactly why Hinata gets so riled up in Kageyama’s presence. It’s hard not to fight back against him.

“I’ll do my best,” he says through clenched teeth, his eyes wide as he chokes down his irritation. He thinks he made the wrong choice, though, when Kageyama blinks and stares down at him, as if he’s waiting for Kei to go off and take a swing.

But he doesn’t say anything else, and instead he sets up another toss. The minus tempo quick set just for him happens all too fast, but he carries himself on the buzz of adrenaline that comes with his anxiety and jumps, feeling the air rush against his face as he springs upward. He reaches out his arm, trying to gauge exactly how long Hinata’s limbs are and exactly where the ball will end up. He has time to take one more centering breath before the ball is flying through the air, spinning fast until it reaches the apex and stops.

Kei slams his hand down.

Somehow, his palm connects with the leather. Somehow, it soars across the net to the other side. Nishinoya is there to receive it, punting it back into the air cleanly with a gleam in his eye and a smirk on his face.

But he did it. Finally.

As he lands, he can already hear Tanaka cheering for him, whooping loud and proud as he jogs over to pat Kei on the back. “Nice one, Hinata!” he says, smacking Kei between his shoulder blades. He stumbles forward, but at least the motion hides his scowl and Tanaka is none the wiser to his true feelings.

“Thanks,” he says, trying his best to say it sincerely. He _is_ proud of himself, but the attention is overwhelming and suffocating. Hinata may thrive in it, but it just makes Kei feel exposed. Unfortunately, the Karasuno volleyball club thinks he’s Hinata right now, and they’re all too happy to shower him in praise.

“Whoa!” Hinata says, sidling up next to him. His hands are pressed to his cheeks and he’s looking at Kei like he hangs the stars in the sky. Kei shifts uncomfortably. “That was so cool! You were all _ka-pow_ and _wha-bam!_ ”

Yamaguchi snickers behind his hand, and Tanaka scowls, pushing Kei behind him in some kind of act of protection. “Don’t you dare make fun of him, Tsukishima.”

Hinata’s face twists into a confused horror, and he scrambles to save face. “I–I wasn’t! I was—” He breaks off when he catches Kei’s eye. Kei shakes his head, hoping that his silent warning gets through that thick skull of his.

Yamaguchi’s laughing more openly now, but even his eyebrows are pulled together as he looks between Hinata and Kei, as if trying to solve the puzzle. When he decides he can’t figure it out, he just puts a reassuring hand on Hinata’s shoulder and pulls him away, ignoring Tanaka’s glare entirely.

“Don’t let him bully you, Hinata,” Tanaka says, puffing out his chest. “You did great.”

He feels disingenuous not telling Tanaka the truth, only because Hinata was actually, truly proud of Kei’s accomplishment, but he stays silent nonetheless and nods his head in agreement. “Thank you.”

“Don’t sound so formal!” he says, clapping Kei on the back and laughing jovially. “I may be your senior, but we’re still friends!”

“Right.” Kei wasn’t trying to sound formal, but he’s also not about to correct him.

“Hinata!” Kageyama yells, and for once Kei is _grateful_ to hear his obnoxious, loud, grating voice, since it means he can get away from Tanaka before he discovers that his favorite first year isn’t quite _himself_ today (if he hasn’t noticed it already).

Kei sends a quick smile over his shoulder, hoping it’s Hinata-like enough that Tanaka will accept it, and jogs back to the center of the court where Kageyama is already preparing for another toss.

Yachi grabs a ball from the bin and throws it toward Kageyama, and Kei tears his eyes off the ball long enough to start running forward to the net, jumping as high as he can as he awaits that oh-so-perfect toss they’d been practicing for so long.

It occurs to Kei, when he’s mid-air, when he’s watching Kageyama adjust his aim, when he sucks in one last breath before the ball is propelled at an inhuman speed toward him, that this is perhaps the best time for him and Hinata to have switched bodies. Neither Hinata nor Kageyama have perfected their new quick yet, and the rest of the team, too, is still working out the very last kinks in their new weapons. No one expect him to be perfect yet, to hit every toss that comes his way.

It’s reassuring enough that he finds his shoulders relaxing right before he slams his hand down on the ball. He can _see_ Nishinoya waiting for him on the other side of the court, fire in his eyes and a confident smirk on his face. He knows that Nishinoya will receive the quick easily, as if it’s the slowest and most basic spike ever produced in volleyball. It’s written all over his face.

(Somewhere in the back of his mind, Kei knows that he shouldn’t be able to _see_ exactly what Nishinoya looks like. He’s in the middle of a jump, and he’s only glanced over the net for a second to see the ball’s trajectory. But these thoughts are nowhere near his first, and he forgets them as soon as they flit across his mind.)

Then there are hands in front of him, knocking the ball back to his side. The ball falls to the ground before Kei does, and when his gym shoes squeak on the wooden panels he looks up into the grinning face of Hinata.

“Your arms are so long!” Hinata exclaims, and Kei freezes.

“Dumbass!” he hisses under his breath, reaching under the net and dragging Hinata down so they’re eye level. His glare, he’s absolutely certain, is bone-chilling, and Hinata’s face drops and pales when he realizes that maybe, perhaps, he shouldn’t have said something like that in public. “Are you out of your mind?”

“I–I tried to be quiet!” he protests, waving his arms around weakly and tugging back against Kei’s grasp on his shirt. “I’m sorry!”

“You have to be more careful!” he says, much more forcefully this time, and he has to fight to keep it quiet enough that no one but Hinata can hear.

He’s acutely aware of the several pairs of eyes on his back, but he’s much too irritated (and, quite honestly, terrified) to pay much attention to any of his teammates. He can deal with them _after_ he’s drilled into Hinata’s head the severity of their situation, and why he should _never_ talk about this in public, no matter what.

Then he hears a quiet, wicked, familiar snickering behind Hinata, and Kei feels betrayed for the second time that day. “Hey, you lovebirds, save it for after practice,” Yamaguchi says behind his hand, leering at Hinata as if to pointedly make fun of him.

It’s not often that Yamaguchi is bold enough to drag Kei in public, and this time he’s picked the worst possible moment to gather that courage. Kei can’t help but feel conflicted because, well, at least Yamaguchi isn’t directing it at Kei, but at the same time, Yamaguchi has no idea that he’s _not_ directing it at Kei. And that pisses him off.

But more than that, the actual _statement_ itself is enough to bring an unsightly shade of pink to both his and Hinata’s cheeks.

“We are _not_ lovebirds!” Kei protests, taking advantage of the fact that he’s in Hinata’s body to shout exactly what’s on his mind. He lets go of Hinata as if he’s been burned, stepping away from the net to put as much distance between them as possible.

Hinata, though, has gone rigid, his face beet red and his jaw slack as he looks at Yamaguchi unseeingly.

Yamaguchi just continues laughing, but it’s more good-natured and soft-spoken now. “I was just kidding, you guys. You don’t have to get so upset about it.”

“R–right,” Hinata stammers, finally breaking the dam that’s held back his words. “Right! You were kidding. Yeah. Of course.”

Yamaguchi isn’t nearly as good at masking his emotions as Kei is. So he can see exactly when his amusement turns into something serious, something curious, something puzzled. His eyebrows draw together and his hand falls from his face and Kei can see a distinct frown as he bites at the dead skin on his lips. “Sorry, Tsukki. I went too far.” It’s quiet and meant for only him and Hinata, but Kei is still close enough to hear it.

It was a good guess, and Yamaguchi has always been sensitive of others’ feelings (he makes up for what Kei lacks, like a proper “other half” would), but he couldn’t be more wrong this time. This once, though, he’s willing to let Yamaguchi think what he wants to think because the truth is far worse and far more complicated.

Hinata puts his hands up in frantic defense. “It—it’s fine!” he stammers, his gaze flitting between Yamaguchi and Kei so rapidly that even Kei gets dizzy watching it.

It’s when he hears more snickering behind him that Kei decides he’s had way too much of this. “Let’s go again,” he says, already taking his place in the center of the court. Kageyama still hasn’t moved from his place near the ball bin, but he’s eyeing Kei curiously.

It’s all he’s gotten all day, these curious glances, like he’s some scientific phenomenon that has yet to be cracked. Kei thinks he should be used to it. But each time someone’s gaze lingers on him just a second too long, as they try and fail to pick apart the differences they noticed between Hinata yesterday and Kei today, as they run through simulations and reasons and what-ifs to possibly make sense of why the person they know as Hinata Shouyou has become quiet and irritable so suddenly and without warning—as they try to make sense of something nonsensical—Kei finds it getting under his skin.

He scratches at his arm, as if the motion will calm his nerves and reset his mind so he can focus on the task at hand instead of the stares that follow him wherever he goes.

Thankfully, Kageyama is nothing if not a simple-minded volleyball freak, and the itch to set a ball for his golden boy is far greater than his desire to figure out just what happened to his partner.

So Kei is able to relax in that moment, knowing a ball is headed straight toward him, that Hinata’s legs will coil and burst up with strength Kei himself doesn’t possess, that he can try his best to spike the perfect toss but if he can’t quite grasp it, it’ll still just be blamed on Kageyama’s ineptitude.

For now, at least. If he wants to keep playing, he’ll have to figure something out.

(Then again, he’s never cared much about being on the court. It wouldn’t hurt to sit a few matches out, anyway. Although he has to wonder if having their decoy warming the bench would throw off Karasuno’s rhythm, and if it would be such a bad thing, after all.)

“Hinata!” Kageyama calls as the toss comes toward him, and Kei finds himself already in the air, ready to slam it down on the other side of the court. He can’t count how many times he’s run this drill today alone. Even with all of Hinata’s endless stamina, he finds himself getting hungrier with each jump, his mind fogging over because even if he has Hinata’s body, he’s still stuck with his own dreary, unmotivated brain.

Nevertheless, he spikes. And he spikes again. And again and again, until he’s finally relieved and it’s Sawamura’s turn to be subjected to the torture of spiking practice. He missed about three-quarters of them, but Kei can see Kageyama’s fiery determination to sync perfectly with him and deliver the exact toss he needs.

He’d rather be on the other side of the court, jumping and blocking.

Kei drops down onto the floor off to the side of the court, taking the bottle Shimizu hands him gratefully and squirting the water into his mouth. He takes the break to calm his rapidly beating heart and rest his burning muscles, and also to observe Hinata as he dashes around the court.

The first thing Kei notices, and perhaps the most prominent thing, is that Hinata is panting, red-faced, and scowling. His steps are slow and heavy as he crosses the court, moving erratically with no care to the differences between his original body and Kei’s.

It cements in Kei’s mind that he really does have a terrible, no-good personality, that he’s truly rotten to his core. Because he smirks behind the water bottle, hiding the malicious glee in his eye as he sees Hinata struggling, doing his best only to fail.

Hinata is slowing down, having expended all of his stamina already. He’s too used to the boundless, infinite energy that he has built up naturally through the years. He hasn’t yet learned how to conserve his stamina like Kei has, to use minimal movements and to make use of the brain between his ears to predict where the ball will go, so he doesn’t end up running back and forth across the court chasing decoys.

And now, Kei thinks with a sick sense of satisfaction, Hinata is finally learning what it means to be a normal person.

Even as he revels in this, Kei can feel his own energy returning, the restlessness manifesting in the way he starts tapping his foot against the wood floors and playing with his fingers to let some of it out. Hinata truly has the natural athleticism that most players would envy to the moon and back.

What a pity, to lose that gift so suddenly.

He’s too busy writing Hinata’s eulogy to notice the presence next to him, until he speaks up and startles Kei out of his reverie. “Tsukishima is really off his game today,” Sugawara comments, not necessarily to _him_ but in general.

Kei looks up to see that Sawamura and Sugawara have made their way over after the captain finished his own round of spikes. “He’s running all over the place without thinking about what he’s doing,” Sawamura agrees with a short nod.

“He must be getting tired. Shouldn’t we rotate him out?” Sugawara suggests, and there’s a hint of worry in his voice. Sawamura cuts that thought off, though, with a shake of his head.

“No,” he says. “It’ll be good for him. Let him run himself ragged so he can learn how to conserve his energy better. Besides, this is the first time I’ve really seen him put effort into practice. It’s almost exciting.”

Kei feels like he’s eavesdropping on a conversation not meant for his ears, but it doesn’t stop him from getting irritated with every subtle dig they make at his expense. It makes him want to shout that he’s _right here, dammit_ , and that they shouldn’t be ridiculing their teammates so openly.

Not that he has any room to talk, but still.

“That’s true,” Sugawara says, and then he leans down uncomfortably into Kei’s personal space, grinning at him. “Hey, Hinata, how is it coming with your side practice? Are you managing to rub off on Tsukishima a little bit?”

Kei had been under the impression that Hinata’s insistence that they practice together at night was his own idea, unprompted by anyone. But the sly look in Sugawara’s eye tells him quite the different story, and it serves to convince Kei that he’ll have to beat the truth out of Hinata later on.

“We’re just practicing receives right now,” Kei explains coldly, recalling the particular skewed receive that landed them in this mess in the first place.

Sugawara blinks and the grin on his face pulls taut, his eyes squinting with just a hint of confusion as he observes and analyzes Kei. “He seems to be much more lively today, though, don’t you think?”

“I suppose so,” he says, just barely restraining himself from showing his frustration on his face or in his body language.

“But you’re not looking too great,” Sawamura says, leaning in next to Sugawara so that they’re both closing in on him, making Kei feel so much smaller than he’s felt all day. And that’s saying _a lot_.

“I must be tired,” he says, taking another drag of the water bottle and standing up, if only to close the gap in height a little bit. “I should go back to practice.”

“Are you sure you’re okay, Hinata?” Sawamura asks, and he sounds so concerned and worried for his precious little protegé that it makes Kei sick.

“I’m fine.” And his tone doesn’t leave room for argument. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Sawamura and Sugawara giving him That Look that he’s come to hate so much, like he’s being scrutinized as a specimen. He ignores it.

When he returns to the court, it’s as a middle blocker, and he’s stuck between Hinata and Ennoshita in a three-person wall as Azumane steps up to spike.

Hinata leans down, lowering his voice appropriately this time. It doesn’t irritate Kei any less, though. “Wanna see who can jump higher?”

“Not interested,” Kei responds coolly, staring straight ahead instead of acknowledging Hinata at all. A small whine escapes Hinata’s throat, and Kei has to force down embarrassment that _that noise_ is coming out of _his mouth_. “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

Kei doesn’t get a chance to respond, though, because Kageyama tosses and Azumane jumps and that stops all conversation. He’s focusing, trying to see exactly where the ball will end up, and then he’s running to the side, chasing after Ennoshita with Hinata following behind. He stops, turns on the ball of his foot, and jumps.

And he’s too slow, too short, and the ball flies right over his head without him even having touched it.

Kei clicks his tongue as he falls back to the floor. Hinata looks down at him, a sparkle in his eyes, and grins. Kei already doesn’t like where this is going.

“You have to time it better!” Hinata says, nodding sagely as if he’s imparting some all-knowing wisdom. “That way you reach the top at the same time as everyone else!”

Kei clenches his fists when he hears Nishinoya behind him, whispering incredulously to Yamaguchi. “Is Tsukishima giving Hinata advice? _Willingly?”_

Kei looks over his shoulder to see Yamaguchi shrug, but even he looks weirded out by the exchange. Because with Kei’s difficult personality, he would never even _think_ of giving someone advice or helping them out unless he got something out of it. Even when he was helping Hinata and Kageyama study before the training camp, Yamaguchi was surprised that he caved so easily.

“Hey!” Hinata barks over his shoulder with a scowl on his face and a bite on his tongue. “Tsu—I can be helpful when I want to be!”

Yamaguchi physically takes a step back, his arms raised in surrender. His mouth is quirked up in an uneasy smile, but Nishinoya looks shocked, as if Hinata had suddenly grown an extra head. Or, perhaps, as if Kei and Hinata had swapped bodies in a freak accident that may or may not be permanent.

“Sorry, Tsukki!” Yamaguchi says, but he doesn’t sound sorry. Well, he would to most other people, but Kei knows him well enough by now that he’s still teasing and he’s far from apologetic.

But all of those observations pale in comparison to the fact that Hinata is defending him. Kei wants to think that he’s just defending himself, but he picked up on the slip of Hinata’s tongue.

It makes Kei feel weird, the thought of someone _defending_ him, like he’s some helpless kid in need of saving. Even Yamaguchi has no interest in sticking up for him, because frankly, everything Kei does is Kei’s fault, and he deserves all the bad karma he’s wracked up to this point in his life. If he dies in an accident and reincarnates as a fly, Yamaguchi would _still_ probably say he deserved it.

(He would, he thinks.)

“‘Tsukishima’ and ‘helpful’ don’t belong in the same sentence,” Tanaka calls from the other side of the court, laughing boisterously at his own joke. At the very least, it serves as a distraction for the uncomfortable rock settling in Kei’s stomach, and he’s able to face Tanaka with a glare that no one pays attention to.

“You’re wrong!” Hinata protests, but it’s weak and pouty even while it’s firm. He crosses his arms over his chest and slumps over, puckering his lips and furrowing his brow. His glasses slide down his nose, but Hinata ignores it.

Kei wants to say something, like _you really don’t have to do this_ or _what the hell are you even saying, do you hear yourself right now_ but he can’t bring it up without prying ears listening way too closely and so he lets the words die on his tongue and he stays quiet, letting Tanaka bellow hearty chortles and Yamaguchi sputter out giggles and Nishinoya taunt Hinata for his actions and his posture and his words.

And eventually they give up, Hinata included, though he gets the last laugh by sticking out his tongue at Yamaguchi, who watches him curiously but doesn’t say anything in return. Kei feels some thrum of urgency, like if they keep this up, the last piece of the puzzle will fall into place and Yamaguchi will figure everything out. He knows it’s as ridiculous as it sounds, but once the idea is there it latches on in his mind and won’t let go, and he spends the rest of practice turning it over and over, running through so many scenarios and possibilities that he feels dizzy.

By the time practice ends, Kei feels like the confrontation has already happened, that Yamaguchi has called him over and called him out, exposing him to the entire volleyball team without care to what might become of them. He can hear it clearly, in the voice he’s grown up with rattling around in his mind: _You’re not Hinata. You’re Tsukki. I’d know you anywhere._

Kei tries his best to think that no, of course that would never happen because there’s no way Yamaguchi would ever come to that kind of conclusion. He’s safe. They’re safe. He has nothing to worry about, no matter how many times he slips up and forgets that he can’t act freely and according to his own personality.

He tells himself that, but each wondering glance and lingering stare lets Kei know that Yamaguchi is getting closer to learning the truth.

Coach Ukai lets the team go with a shout and a promise that the upcoming interhigh preliminary games will be a success, but Kei doesn’t listen to any of it. Instead, he jogs over to where Hinata is standing because it’s the absolute slowest he can possibly go. He grabs onto Hinata’s sleeve and pulls him toward the door, ignoring his protests and the drag in his feet.

“Hinata,” Kageyama calls, and Kei almost keeps walking because he does _not_ want to deal with that bonehead any longer than he has to, but Hinata digs in his heels and forces Kei to spin around and face him. “Wanna keep going? I’ll toss to you.”

“No thanks,” Kei says, and both Kageyama and Hinata are sputtering, flabbergasted that he would even _consider_ turning down such an offer. Kei doesn’t care.

“You’re giving up practice to go hang out with _that guy?”_ Kageyama says, his voice getting louder and angrier the longer he speaks. “Are you insane?”

He must be, Kei thinks. He must be absolutely, completely insane to even consider hanging out with Hinata. But that wasn’t even the question. Or at least, that’s not what Kageyama intended.

“We’re practicing on our own,” Kei spits back, unable to keep emotion out of his voice. He turns around, clutching Hinata’s hand tightly in his own, and lifts his arm in a dismissive goodbye. “See ya.”

Kageyama doesn’t say anything else, but Kei can imagine the dopey, stunned look on his face as he walks away without turning back. Even Hinata seems shocked into silence, and he doesn’t say anything until they get to the club room to change and they finally get to be alone for a few short, short minutes.

“What was that all about?” Hinata asks huffily, stomping his foot for emphasis. “Why were you being so mean to Kageyama?”

“Oh, right, because he’s _so_ nice to me,” Kei drawls lazily, relaxing against the wall as he watches Hinata tug his shirt over his head. His glasses are knocked off his face and to the floor.

“You were mean first,” Hinata says.

“Were you not here when we arrived this morning?” Kei asks with a scoff. “He definitely started that—”

“No, I mean you started being mean to both of us at the beginning of the year,” Hinata retorts, cutting him off, and that shuts Kei up. “You’ve never been nice to either of us. There’s a reason he doesn’t like you.”

Kei would like to say that comment doesn’t bother him, but he’d be lying to himself. And really, he’d be more than happy to lie to himself all day, but the problem with thoughts is that it’s hard to escape them, and when the comment stabs Kei’s chest he can’t help but squirm a little under the sudden discomfort and hurt.

“You said it yourself,” Kei says as smoothly as he can manage. “I have a terrible, no-good personality. What else would you expect from someone like me?”

Hinata ignores him. “If you were nicer, you might have more friends.”

“Who says I want friends?” It’s a lie, he thinks. Or maybe it’s not. He can’t tell.

Hinata winces and rubs his head, blond curls tangling between his fingers. “You’re such a pain, you know that?”

“How unfortunate for you to be stuck with me, then,” Kei practically purrs, finally getting back into his comfort zone long enough that he can put in a good jab without feeling like he’s covering something up.

Hinata just rolls his eyes in a dramatic, exaggerated manner. “Why did you even tell Kageyama that? He’ll get the wrong idea.”

Kei blinks, then comes to a decent conclusion. “What, that we’re practicing together? It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“But you said it so weirdly!” Hinata accuses, pointing a finger at Kei. “What if he thinks we’re… _you know_ , sneaking around or something? You could have at least invited him.”

“I’m pretty sure you two are the only people in the entire world who would interpret volleyball practice as a date,” Kei says blandly, shrugging on his jacket and slinging Hinata’s bag over his shoulder as he waits for Hinata to finish up and scramble for his glasses before he steps on them.

“I would not!” Hinata cries, fixing the glasses properly on his face. “By the way, these things are annoying. You should get contacts or something.”

“They irritate my eyes,” Kei says. “And you’re changing the subject.” He doesn’t really mind that, though. The topic is making him uncomfortable.

“Am not!”

“Whatever.” Kei hears the shouts of their teammates from below, and he realizes they’ve run out of time. “I didn’t invite Kageyama because we don’t need _more_ time trying to pretend to be each other. Now let’s go, before everyone else gets here.”

The answer appears to satisfy Hinata, and he hums a little before following Kei out of the room and past the second-years who, again, give them that annoyingly curious look.

“Are we actually going to practice more?” Hinata asks over the gurgle of his stomach. “If we are, can we get food first? I’m starving!”

“It’s because you pushed yourself too hard,” Kei says. “And no, we’re not going to practice. I’m exhausted, and you probably are, too.”

“I guess…” Hinata trails off as he follows Kei off the school grounds. “We’re going to your house, right? Will you help me with my homework?”

“It’s my homework anyway,” Kei says, and that’s as much of an affirmation as Hinata apparently needs, because he doesn’t say anything more.

Halfway to Kei’s house, he decides that he can no longer hold in the question that’s been stewing in his mind. He blames it on Hinata’s influence and mentally gags. “Earlier…”

Hinata turns toward him expectantly, his eyes wide and wondering at whatever Kei may have to say. Kei loses his nerve.

“Never mind.”

“No, no! Tell me!” he begs, grabbing onto Kei’s jacket and tugging hard. “You have to tell me now because you made me curious!”

“I don’t have to do anything,” Kei says, and even he recognizes that he sounds like a petulant child.

“Yes you do! Tell me!”

And that’s that, he supposes. He sighs, breathing out his next words in short, choppy syllables. “Earlier… you said Kageyama doesn’t like me, but you also included yourself when you talked about how mean I am to you both.”

He doesn’t want to continue, but Hinata’s gone quiet as he listens intently, his face serious and calm. It irks Kei in ways he’s never quite felt before. And it compels him to keep talking, even though he really, really doesn’t want to.

“...Does that mean you don’t like me, either?” he finishes all in one slurred string of words, quiet and rushed and breathy all at once.

It takes Hinata a moment to even process what Kei has said, and he stares blankly down at him, his eyes blinking slowly and lazily as he turns over each word in his head. Kei can practically see the gears turning in his mind, the cogs dusty and rusted as they struggle to turn Kei’s words into something coherent and logical.

“Huh?” he says brilliantly, breaking the silence so suddenly that Kei jumps.

He’s really going to have to repeat himself, isn’t he? Holy shit.

“I _said,”_ he seethes slowly and pointedly, marking each word with anger, “does that mean you don’t like me?”

His anger doesn’t last long, instead replaced by an acute embarrassment that gnaws at his belly until he feels like he’s going to keel over and vomit all over the sidewalk.

“Oh.”

Oh.

_Oh._

Yeah, that really gives Kei so much to go on. Fantastic. He puts himself out on a limb, lets himself be vulnerable and open for once in his life, and all he gets is a quiet, unassuming _oh_.

“Hm.” And yet another brilliantly verbose response from Hinata.

Kei grips his pant legs with his fists, refusing to look up at Hinata. If he ignores him, he can pretend he doesn’t exist. It’s a foolproof plan, in Kei’s humble opinion.

Hinata causes that plan to crumble entirely just by speaking. “You really are a softy! Softyshima!”

And then there are arms wrapping tightly around Kei, and he feels like he can’t breathe because Hinata’s squeezing him so tightly, and at some point the ground falls out from under him as he’s lifted into the air.

“Let go of me!” Kei shouts, fighting back with all his strength, even considering _biting_ Hinata so he’ll let go of him, but with enough pushing and shoving, he gets Hinata to drop him and leave him alone, finally separating so they’re no longer mushed together.

“Sorry, that just really surprised me!” Hinata says casually, beaming down at him.

“Shut up,” Kei mumbles under his breath. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“But you just told me to shut up,” Hinata points out.

Kei growls, and he ends up yelling with far more emotion than he ever intended. “Just tell me!”

Hinata is still smiling, but he doesn’t respond right away, as if it’s a deliberate attempt to make Kei sweat. Kei confirms that when he sees a mirror of that smile in Hinata’s eyes, and he wants to take back this entire conversation immediately. “Well… I _suppose_ so.”

“What does that even _mean?”_ Kei gripes, nowhere near in the mood to put up with this bullshit.

“It means I like you, you dummy,” Hinata says. It nearly stops Kei’s heart, until Hinata backtracks without a break in his tone. “We’re friends, remember?”

“Y–yeah,” Kei says, feeling the heat of his blush unfreeze and thaw his insides.

They don’t say anything else until they’re home, when Hinata has to stumble through a greeting and say hi to Kei’s mom and pretend that everything is okay when it’s _not_ , and then they don’t even talk that much when Kei forces Hinata to sit down and work on his homework, and they say nothing at all when they lay down to sleep, backs to each other in the darkness of Kei’s room.

Kei is half-asleep and delirious when he hears Hinata speak again, and he almost chalks it up to a dream until he repeats himself.

“Tsukishima?”

“What,” he tries to say. It comes out as more of a “mmrgh.”

“I still think we should tell Yamaguchi.”

“Go to sleep.” This time, it comes out far more coherent, and he doesn’t hear anything else from Hinata. So he falls asleep thinking that maybe, hopefully, this will all be fixed in the morning.

  
  


When Kei opens his eyes and everything is crystal clear, when orange bangs flop in his peripheral vision, when he still feels constricted and too small, he reconsiders everything.

Hinata is already awake and reading one of Kei’s manga at his table quietly when Kei sits up, rubbing at his eyes. “Fine,” he says, and Hinata nearly jumps out of his skin (if only it could be so easy).

“What are you talking about?” Hinata asks suspiciously, closing the book and squinting at Kei.

“We’ll tell Yamaguchi.”

Hinata grins like he’s won a million yen.


	6. step 06. honesty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yamaguchi presses a hand to his forehead. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
> 
> “Just don’t get it on my shoes,” Kei mumbles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i literally have no idea how to write consistent chapter lengths oops

“Wow…” Yamaguchi leans back against the wall, his lips drawn into a thin, tense line. He fiddles with the hem of his shirt as he stares between Hinata and Kei.

It’s lunch time and they’ve managed to find a secluded space where they can talk, but that fact doesn’t ease Kei’s nerves any. He keeps looking around, convinced that someone will stumble upon their little gathering and expose them. He had wanted to wait until after school, after practice, but Hinata insisted that Yamaguchi should know as soon as possible. And Kei agreed at the time, though begrudgingly.

“So? So?” Hinata presses, moving so his face is pushed almost right up against Yamaguchi’s, their noses so close to touching that any onlooker would think he’s going in for a kiss. “Do you believe us?”

Yamaguchi gently pushes Hinata away, but he doesn’t say anything for a few moments. Instead he looks between them, that curious glint in his eye. It’s not the same one as the previous day, though. This one, rather, indicates that all the puzzle pieces have been put in place, and now he’s trying to figure out if the resulting picture is actually supposed to look like a neo-dadaist nightmare or not.

Then he sighs, and Kei holds his breath. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Figures.

He continues, quirking the corner of his mouth into a smile. “Is this some kind of prank? Not that I’m not used to that kind of thing, but this is a little overboard, don’t you think?”

“Heh?” Hinata shouts, and Kei has to grab at his arm to quiet him. “We’re not pranking you!”

Kei doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have any reason to. Hinata’s doing all of the embarrassing work, and he’s grateful for that because it means he can stand there sulking and ignoring them both instead of trying to explain something as ludicrous and inane as body swapping. He’s already embarrassed enough, already fighting the heat that rushes up his neck and covers his face, and he’s _glad_ for the first time since they switched that Hinata’s hair is so fluffy and long because it covers his ears and hides their pink tips.

“I’m serious, this is starting to freak me out a little,” Yamaguchi says, eyeing Kei warily as he attempts to avoid Hinata’s affront. He looks a little longer between him and Hinata, scrutinizing them doubtfully, before settling on the taller blond. “I don’t know why you’re trying so hard with this, Tsukki.”

“I’m not Tsukki!” Hinata practically shouts, groaning out his frustration and throwing his arms in the air. He lolls his head to the side and stares down at Kei, his face sour and his eyes frantic. “Tsukishima, he doesn’t believe me! You tell him!”

Kei really doesn’t want to be dragged into this, but it’s not like he has a choice. He’s one-half of the reason they’re in this situation, anyway. So he sighs and steels his nerves and faces Yamaguchi dead-on and says, “Yeah, it’s all true.”

Yamaguchi’s eyebrows pinch. “Why are you even going along with this, Hinata? I thought you didn’t even like each other,” he says, and that uneasy smile is no longer on his face. He shakes his head. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but I don’t appreciate it. Tsukki can be an asshole, but it’s hard to believe he’d get you caught up in it, or that you’d agree.”

Kei frowns but doesn’t comment on the insult. “It was Hinata’s idea to tell you, not mine,” he says, pointing at Hinata, who’s pacing around the shady area of their secluded hiding place, grumbling quietly. “So I don’t even _want_ to do this. But he’s not lying. We’re not lying.”

Yamaguchi still looks doubtful.

“And for the record,” Kei continues with a smirk, “I don’t like Hinata. I just happen to be stuck with him.”

Hinata wails, flailing his arms again before clinging onto Kei’s uniform. “Tsukishima, don’t be so mean! You don’t hate me, do you?”

It’s true; he doesn’t _hate_ Hinata. But even if they’ve been forced into a situation where they might’ve maybe sort of started to call each other friends, it doesn’t mean he was given a choice. Besides, he can be friends with someone without liking them. That kind of thing happens all the time. Probably.

(He recognizes privately, so privately that even he himself barely acknowledges it, that he’s no longer quite so irritated by Hinata’s presence, and that he doesn’t exactly _mind_ his company, and that maybe somewhere deep, deep, _deep_ within the very depths of his heart, he might even like Hinata. Maybe.)

He pushes Hinata off of him with a frustrated grunt. _“No,_ I don’t hate you.”

“I knew it!” Hinata cheers, jumping up once in celebration. “I’m too lovable to hate, anyway.”

“I can’t tell if you’re too self-aware or not self-aware enough,” Kei says with a grimace.

Yamaguchi watches the exchange with wide, uncertain eyes, his hair flying as he turns his head from Kei, to Hinata, back to Kei. When he settles on looking past them through the space between them, he looks dizzy and a little green. “You’re… you’re not lying, are you?”

“That’s what we’ve been saying!” Hinata says, gesturing emphatically with his hands. “We really did switch bodies, and that’s Tsukishima, and I’m Hinata!” He points to Kei a little too wildly and shoves his finger into Kei’s cheek, but he ignores Kei’s growl of protest.

“It happened when we were practicing,” Kei explains again. “Hinata fell out of the tree, and before we knew it, we had swapped bodies.”

Yamaguchi presses a hand to his forehead. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“Just don’t get it on my shoes,” Kei mumbles.

Hinata looks frantically around the schoolyard as if searching for something Yamaguchi can vomit in. When he comes up empty-handed, he resigns himself to Yamaguchi’s fate with a tiny sigh.

“You’re Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says, finally looking at Kei like he believes it. Like he’s his best friend since grade school. It brings Kei more relief than he had expected, and he feels like a huge weight has been lifted off his shoulders.

He doesn’t voice any of this, though, and just nods in confirmation. “And that idiot over there is Hinata.” He jerks a thumb in his direction, ignoring the obliviously bright smile painted on his face.

Yamaguchi stares a little longer, a little harder at them, and then his mouth twists upward. “You’re kidding.”

“We’re not! We just went over this!” Hinata moans, draping himself over Kei, and he’s big and heavy and Kei can’t hold him up so he nearly crumbles to the ground with a loud grunt, just managing to keep himself upright before shoving him off of him.

Yamaguchi shakes his head, and the laughter that bubbles up is soft and sweet. “No, no, I mean. This is ridiculous.” His giggles grow until his shoulders are shaking and he’s doubling over, barely able to maintain composure. “Tsukki, you must have—ahaha!—you must have accumulated so much bad karma that the gods decided you had to be punished in the worst way imaginable.”

Well. At least he’s speaking to him and not Hinata. That has to count for something.

Hinata is laughing as well, like this hasn’t affected him in any way. “I would think the gods are smiling on me,” he says, wiping an imaginary tear from his eye, “but they stuck me with Stingyshima and that’s the worst! I don’t know how you’ve managed to put up with him all these years, Yamaguchi!”

Yamaguchi puts a hand on Hinata’s shoulder to steady himself. “He’s a real piece of work, isn’t he?”

“I’m already sick of him after just a couple of days!”

“Try going four years being his only friend!”

Kei clears his throat loudly enough to cut through their hoots and hollers and guffaws and other gross, boisterous noises. “I’m right here, you know.”

“Don’t worry, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says, beaming down at him. “We know.”

Kei wants to murder. He’s not sure _who_ he wants to murder, but he does. Maybe he can knock out two crows with one stone.

But he can’t deny that it’s nice to be referred to as _himself_ again. He’s not quite gotten into the habit of responding when Hinata’s name is called, and having that familiarity is comforting. Yamaguchi is comforting. Even if he _is_ an asshole.

“Why did you decide to believe us?” Hinata asks, finally calming down. He adjusts his glasses with a little twitch of his nose. “You didn’t look so certain before.”

“I don’t have any way to prove you wrong,” Yamaguchi explains slowly, and Kei can see lingering doubt in the pull of his frown and the creases of his forehead. “And you’re both way too good at acting like each other that it’s a little freaky. But if this turns out to be just a really elaborate prank, you’re both going to be my slaves for a month as reparations for putting me through this emotional distress.”

Hinata gasps, loud and dramatic and annoying. “We wouldn’t do that! Right, Tsukki?”

“Don’t call me that,” Kei says.

At the same time, Yamaguchi lets out a bark that Kei might describe as laughter. “You’re asking the wrong person, Hinata. Tsukki has put me through so much, since I’m the only one who will stick around for longer than a few months.”

“Can you please stop bringing up my social failings?” Kei asks, glaring hard at Yamaguchi. He wonders again why he calls him a friend.

Hinata responds with a clap to Kei’s back and a hearty chuckle in his ear. “It’s okay, Tsukishima! Even if you don’t have any friends, we’ll still be here for you!”

“Wouldn’t that make you both my friends?” Kei asks blandly.

“Oh, you know what I mean!” Hinata wrinkles up his nose and dislodges the glasses he’d worked so hard to keep up on his face just moments before. “Even if you’re terrible at making friends, at least you have us!”

Yamaguchi smiles through bleary eyes, as if he’s about to start crying. “I can’t believe my little Tsukki is growing up and making friends. I don’t think my heart can take it.” He clutches his hand over his chest to emphasize his point.

“It’s not _that_ uncommon for me to make friends,” Kei shoots back, but it’s weak and it’s a lie and everyone present knows that. So instead of even _trying_ to humor him, both Yamaguchi and Hinata (the Traitors, Kei dubs them) double over with overexaggerated laughter yet again.

When Yamaguchi calms down, he takes a deep breath and schools his face into something more serious, even though his face is still alight with humor. “So what are you two going to do?”

“What do you mean?” Hinata asks through the remains of tiny giggles.

“Well, you’re stuck like this for right now, right?” Yamaguchi says, gesturing at them weirdly. “But you don’t want to… _stay_ like this, right? How are you going to manage this whole _body swap_ thing?” He says _body swap_ like it’s a poison, or a terrible, heinous criminal act worthy of the death penalty.

Hinata falters, chewing at his lip as he thinks over his answer.

“Well…”

“We are not staying like this,” Kei butts in before Hinata can once again gush about how ‘cool’ and ‘exciting’ it is to be stuck in another person’s body. “You’ve had your chance to be tall. I want my body back.”

Hinata deflates immediately, but then he bristles up and sticks out his tongue. “You’re not that great, anyway! Maybe I can find Kuroo-san and switch places with him!”

 _“And_ we’re back to comparing me with that guy,” Kei says, placing his head in his hands. “You don’t even know how this happened, so what makes you think you’d be able to recreate it through your will alone?”

“Stupidshima! Stop poking holes in my plans!” Hinata exclaims, and then Kei is engulfed by long limbs as Hinata grabs him, giving him a noogie. He shouts out his frustrations wordlessly, pulling and jerking on Kei every which way.

“I’m not poking holes if you don’t have a plan to begin with!” Kei shouts over Hinata’s yelling, pushing back against Hinata’s strong grip, but Hinata holds fast.

“It is too a plan! You’re just mean!” Hinata says, rubbing his knuckles harder against Kei’s skull.

“Get off of me!” Kei shouts, giving one last, final shove against Hinata. With way too much effort, Hinata is knocked away, and Kei goes flying back, losing his footing and falling to the ground. Hinata falls over too, landing hard on his butt with a loud groan.

Yamaguchi stares down at him in stunned silence, the gentle upward slope of his lips the only indication that he’s found their entire exchange amusing. “You two sure are something.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” Kei says as he contorts his face in disgust, as if Yamaguchi had just dunked him in a vat of Jello, or something.

Yamaguchi snickers. “It’s just that you’ve become such good friends, even though it’s only been a few days since this body swap thing has happened.”

“We are not _good_ _friends,_ ” Kei insists. “If anything, I just tolerate him.”

“Whatever you say, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says, finishing it off with a little hum.

“We’re not.”

“I know, I know.”

“I mean it.”

“Mhm.”

Hinata recovers and comes bounding back to them with a smile on his face. “If Stupidshima and I are friends now, does that mean we are, too?”

“Huh? You and me?” Yamaguchi clarifies, pointing at himself. “Well… yeah, I guess so. If you want to be.”

Hinata’s grin widens, and he suddenly grabs Yamaguchi’s hands with enough strength that it looks like it hurts. “Nice! I’m glad! You’re so much nicer than Tsukishima, anyway. It’ll be good having you around to protect me from him!”

 _“Protect_ you?” Kei repeats, glowering at Hinata with all the heat of the sun.

“You’re scary and annoying, but Yamaguchi’s survived you for years,” Hinata says, nodding seriously. “So he’ll know how to protect me from you, too!”

Yamaguchi rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to protect you…”

“Why would you need _protection_ anyway?” Kei asks through his teeth.

“So you don’t, like, murder me in my sleep, or steal my glasses and flush them down the toilet, or eat my lunch, or string me up on a flagpole by my underwear—”

“You realize that if I do any of those things to you, I’ll just be hurting myself?” Kei asks, pressing his fingers to his temples. “Since you’re in my body.”

“Maybe you secretly _want_ to keep my body, and you’ve just been lying this whole time to throw me off guard!” Hinata gasps suddenly, like he’s just cracked the Da Vinci Code.

“Even if I wanted to be a shrimp, I wouldn’t want to be _you_. I’d choose Morisuke-san or someone else that isn’t an annoying ball of energy,” Kei levels.

“You’re so mean to me,” Hinata pouts. “And here I was praising your body and all…”

“You were _what?”_ Yamaguchi asks, jaw dropping. He looks to Kei, as if he can provide some kind of explanation.

Kei can’t help it; his entire face blooms with red. “Wh–why did you bring that up?” he stammers, the offending words rolling around in his head, repeating and echoing and taunting him.

“The other day!” Hinata elaborates, his face serious and sincere like he hasn’t thought at all about what he’s saying. “When I was comparing you to Kuroo-san and everyone else!”

Yamaguchi recovers before Kei can and giggles behind his hand. “Tsukki, you look like a tomato.”

“Shut up,” he mumbles.

“It’s because you’re really tall.” And of course Hinata keeps going, because Hinata has no idea what the word _tact_ even means (read: he literally does not know what that word means, considering he missed that question on his last Japanese test). But he turns to Yamaguchi, as if explaining his reasoning. “And I’ve always wanted to be tall! And Tsukishima is the tallest person on the volleyball team! He’s not as tall as Lev is, though, but I think I’d rather compete against him than _be_ him, you know? And if I switched with Lev, I wouldn’t have him to fight against in our Nekoma matches!”

“You really never shut up, do you,” Kei says quietly, but it’s loud enough that Hinata gapes and rounds on him, gesturing wildly at him.

“I do too shut up! I can shut up right now, see?” He sucks in his breath and holds it, his cheeks puffed out comically and his face slowly turning red the longer he stays that way. Kei raises an eyebrow in disbelief, watching him without saying anything, and after a few seconds, Hinata explodes, letting his air out in a loud, exasperated pant. He bends over, only holding himself upright by the hands he places on Kei’s shoulder.

He has to wonder just when they became so tactile, but he brushes off the question when he remembers that they’re literally in each other’s bodies right now. That’s about as physically close as they can possibly get; everything else is just child’s play, really.

It’s still weird, though.

“Are you satisfied?” Kei asks.

“That’s my question!” Hinata insists. “You’re the one who didn’t think I could be quiet!”

“I still don’t think that.”

“Argh!” Hinata growls, squeezing Kei’s shoulders tightly. “You’re impossible!”

Kei is unimpressed. “And you’re a volleyball freak. What else is new?”

Their bickering is cut off with the loud, long drone of the school bell beckoning them to return to class.

“We should go back,” Yamaguchi says, putting himself bodily between them. “Tsu—sorry, _Hinata,_ let’s go. I’ll see you at practice, Tsukki!” He waves behind him even as he uses the other to push Hinata toward the school building.

Hinata sighs and slumps over, but he lets Yamaguchi lead him back, even if he drags his feet. “But your class is too hard!” he complains, but both of them ignore him.

Kei follows behind more slowly, feeling a slight twinge of jealousy in his gut as he remembers that he’s now the only one among them without a friend in his class. At least before, both he and Hinata were alone, but now Hinata has Yamaguchi, _his friend,_ and Kei doesn’t like it one bit.

He really does have a rotten personality.


	7. step 07. noisy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do I look like the kind of person who watches home improvement shows?” Kei asks, raising his eyebrow.

Kei knew it wouldn’t take long before Hinata’s mother started worrying about why he wasn’t coming home. He knew it, and still he hoped that if he pretended forcefully enough that his family didn’t exist, they would completely disappear from his life and he’d never have to spend a night alone with people he doesn’t know and doesn’t care to meet.

When Hinata’s phone buzzes in his pocket as they’re walking home after afternoon practice, though, Kei is reminded that he’s accumulated way too much bad karma in his life to be lucky this time around, and he holds his breath as he reads over the email.

“Who is it?” Hinata asks, bounding over to him with more energy than he should have after such a grueling practice. Kei wonders briefly if Hinata has been eating more, building up more energy to combat the sluggishness of Kei’s body. It doesn’t irritate him nearly as much as he’d like it to, not after he’s gotten a taste of that bottomless stamina for himself.

“Your mom,” Kei replies, shutting off his distracted thoughts as he looks back at the phone. He thinks that he’d prefer the distraction, though, because now that his mind is clear and focused, his heart is pounding with anxiety and worry. “She wants me to come home tonight.”

Hinata’s breath is long and heavy as he thinks, and he takes the phone to read the email for himself. “Does that mean we have to split up for the night?”

“I guess so.” He ignores the way his mind is screaming at him to cling to Hinata and never let him go.

Hinata squirms uncomfortably, like he’s thinking the same thing. “Then… I’ll be alone with your parents.”

“I’ll be alone with your parents,” Kei says in return. “And your sister.”

Hinata gasps indignantly, pulled out of his thoughts. “You better not do anything weird to her!”

Kei’s face twists in some kind of disgusted horror. “Like _what?”_

“Like… like turn her into one of your minions!” Hinata finishes lamely. “Or make her watch boring home improvement shows!”

“Do I look like the kind of person who watches home improvement shows?” Kei asks, raising his eyebrow.

“Well right now, you look like _me,_ so no,” Hinata says. “But with your usual boring dumb face you do! You probably watch reruns every night while eating dinner, too!”

“Doesn’t that just mean _you_ look like you watch home improvement shows, then?” Kei asks, snickering behind his hand. “Since you look like me right now, after all.”

“Oh, you’re right!” Hinata bemoans, slapping his face and dragging his hands down his cheeks dramatically. He makes a noise that sounds like a cross between a gasp and a groan. “I look like a boring old grandpa!”

“You look like a sixteen-year-old high schooler,” Kei says, ignoring the way Hinata puffs up like a baby bird.

“You’re still boring,” Hinata says, refusing to let it go. “So you better not make my sister boring, either. You have to play with her! Play!”

“What, does she like dolls and dress up?” Kei asks, a raised eyebrow the only change in his disinterested expression.

“No!” Hinata says. “She likes playing volleyball with me! And watching TV. And going swimming, I guess, but that’s mostly in the summer. But it’s still warm enough for that, so…”

“I’m not taking your little sister swimming.”

“Why not? That’s rude! Rudeshima!” Hinata wrinkles his nose. “I’m a much better brother than you are. Your brother probably hates you.”

“I almost wish that were the case,” Kei mumbles under his breath, thinking of the way Akiteru never leaves him alone. “But I’d rather not look at any more of your body than I have to, so I’m only going to agree to activities that let me stay properly clothed.”

Hinata considers that statement briefly, and then his eyes light up with realization. “Oh, that makes sense. Okay.”

“Thank you,” Kei says dryly. “Are there any other rules you want me to follow with your family?”

As Hinata thinks, Kei formulates a battle plan in his mind. They’ve managed to evade his own mother for the most part by staying in his room when they’re at home, but Kei’s mom is content to let him do his own thing. He doesn’t know if that’ll be the case with Hinata’s mom. Will he be expected to spend a lot of time with them?

Kei cringes at the idea. He can get away with this body swap thing because his classmates don’t know him well enough to tell the difference. He has Yamaguchi and Hinata to cover for him during practice. But at home, he’ll be alone, and Hinata’s family knows their son better than anyone else.

He can’t help thinking that they’ll figure everything out as soon as he walks through the door, and he’ll have nothing to fall back on, no safety net. He worries that he’ll be the one to expose them both, and then everything will fall apart.

He’s so deep in thought that he almost doesn’t hear when Hinata finally speaks again.

“I don’t think there’s anything… I can draw a map of my house for you?” he offers.

“I don’t need a map,” Kei challenges, wondering how he’d be able to explain why he has a map of his own house if Hinata’s parents catch him looking.

“Boo,” Hinata say, wrinkling his nose. “Fine, then. Other than that, you just have to be friendly! But that might be too hard for you, Suckyshima.”

“I can act like a simpleton if I want to,” Kei says smoothly, refusing to let Hinata in on his thoughts. “I’m sure it’s much harder to act like someone with a brain when you don’t have one yourself, though. I pity your situation.”

Hinata’s face goes red. “You take that back! Stingyshima! Rudeshima! Awfulshima!”

“Getting really creative with the names again, I see,” he says. “Are you done yet, or should I tell your mom that I’ll be late coming home because of an obnoxious child blocking my way?”

“Joke’s on you, Stupidshima, my mom thinks I’m a delight.”

“Only because she has to,” Kei counters.

“You’re wrong!” Hinata clenches his fist, and Kei backs down immediately. He doesn’t want to _seriously_ hurt Hinata, not when he has no choice but to get along with him. If he had the option of keeping Hinata at arm’s length and never getting closer, if he had the choice to remain antagonistic acquaintances with him, things might be different. He wouldn’t have to worry about such frivolous things as Hinata’s feelings. But they’re stuck in this situation indefinitely, and so long as their fates are intertwined like this, Kei can’t push him away.

“Fine, fine, I’m sorry,” Kei breathes out, and Hinata eyes him suspiciously, waiting for another insult, for him to take it back, for him to reveal his apology was nothing more than a joke. It makes sense.

When Kei says nothing more, though, Hinata speaks up in his place. “Just… don’t be a jerk. My family is really nice, and I’m sure you’ll get along well with them. But you won’t if you act like your usual dumb self.” The last jab he can’t resist to add as an afterthought has no fire, no heat, and Kei wonders if Hinata even believes it himself.

“Will you be okay on your own tonight?” He’s not sure why that’s the question that comes to mind, since he should be more concerned with his own predicament. Even Hinata blinks in surprise, cocking his head to the side as he thinks.

“Well, at least I’ve met your parents before,” Hinata says. “And your older brother isn’t coming home for a few days, right? So I’ll be fine.” Hinata squirms a little and plays with his fingers, conveying his own nervousness loud and clear even without saying anything.

Kei doesn’t say anything, doesn’t point out the disparity between his words and his actions. He chooses to take it at face value, because he shouldn’t care, doesn’t care, how Hinata feels about this arrangement. He’s not close enough to Hinata to think of the ways this might affect him, being alone with his family for the night.

“Just don’t ruin anything while I’m not there,” he mumbles under his breath, because this is easier than trying to comfort Hinata with empty words about everything being okay or believing that Hinata won’t destroy everything. Pessimism is an art that he’s mastered. Sympathy? Not so much.

They arrive at Kei’s house within the next ten minutes, and Hinata’s bike is still leaning carefully against the side of his house, where it has been for the last few days. Kei would like for it to stay there indefinitely, if only because removing it means that he has to leave his comfort zone and venture into the great unknown that is Hinata’s house.

But Hinata has other plans, and he grabs the bike and nearly thrusts it into Kei’s hands, intently focusing on handing it over. “Do you know how to get to my house?” he asks, and it’s quiet and timid because Hinata will be the first one alone. Kei has time to prepare now, since he still has a long bike ride ahead of him, but Hinata has only minutes before he’s faced with a family that’s not his and an environment he’s still unfamiliar with.

“I think so,” Kei says, but Hinata gives him directions anyway—stalling, perhaps—pointing every which way to indicate some kind of spatial map that Kei can’t follow. There’s a turn here, a hill there, and the longer Hinata drones on about this, the more Kei begins to understand just how deep the training Hinata has undergone to gain the stamina he has today.

He feels almost bad for his earlier private comments about Hinata losing his natural athleticism. It isn’t natural at all, but rather built up through endurance and perseverance that Kei could never replicate or even fathom.

Kei shoves down his guilt and forces himself to pay attention to Hinata’s directions, until he’s distracted again by his plans for when he arrives at Hinata’s house. Greet his family, put away his shoes, sit down for dinner without making a fuss, eat as much as he can fit in his stomach, play with Natsu or watch TV, then retire to bed (and if Kei can squeeze in homework, well that would just be great).

Kei grips the handles of the bike. He can’t remember the last time he rode one, since his house is so close to the commercial district of Miyagi, and the thought of such a long ride has him glancing down the road warily.

Hinata lets go of the bike and takes a step away, his eyes wide but not fearful as he watches Kei, expecting him to do something. Kei is slow on the uptake and stares at Hinata blankly, waiting for some kind of explanation.

“Are you gonna go?” Hinata prompts, flickering his gaze between him and the bike. “My mom will get worried if you’re not home on time. Since it’s such a long ride and lots of bad things can happen.”

“Oh, uh,” Kei says awkwardly, shuffling a little to avoid getting on the bike. If he gets on it, if he rides away, there’s no turning back. He has to keep going forward, and he’s not ready for that. “Yeah, I’m going.”

Hinata quirks up a smile, and though it’s soft, it’s still genuine, almost blinding in its intensity. “I’ll be good here. I won’t make anyone suspicious, I promise!”

“Um, yeah, me too,” Kei arees with a curt, wooden nod. “I should… get going.”

“Yeah.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and that unintentional condescension is enough to kickstart Kei into action, if only out of spite. He swings his leg over the seat of the bike and puts his feet on the pedals, kicking off the ground with only a cursory wave behind him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Kei says, and the thought grips at his heart.

“See you tomorrow!” Hinata agrees, calling after him. Somehow, he’s managed to perk up between then and now, and he sounds bright and cheery, no evidence of worry in his tone at all. Kei wonders how he can shift between such extreme emotions with ease, without even wearing himself out. His mental fortitude is bottomless, perhaps.

Kei replays the mental scene he’s created in his mind over and over again. He tells himself what he’ll do when he gets home, how he’ll do it exactly down to the most miniscule action. Move in big, exaggerated movements, talk louder than usual, smile every time someone is watching, and don’t let anyone figure out that he isn’t the Hinata Shouyou they know. If he can manage that, just that, he should be okay.

He can retire to his room and find solace in the solitude, without worrying about creeping eyes and maintaining boundaries.

When he reaches a certain fork, he turns left, according to the directions Hinata had given him. The paved road turns to dirt, and trees become thicker as shadows grow longer. It’s still only late afternoon, but the density of trees casts so many thick shadows that it feels like it’s closer to late evening than anything.

And then it’s still a thirty minute ride down that long, winding path until he finally reaches the house that Hinata described at length. He confirms the house number before he even dares to get off the bike, but a volleyball, old and worn and tearing apart at the seams, sitting in the front of the house is reassuring in ways Kei didn’t realize he needed.

So he puts up the bike, leaning it against the house, and walks through the front door with a loud, “I’m home.” It’s devoid of emotion, not like how Hinata would say it, but it’s okay, he tells himself. It’s okay because no one would guess that their son is any different. Everything is fine, so far.

There’s a chorus of hellos from within various rooms of the house, and Kei can hear the droning of the television somewhere behind a wall. It’s loud and action-packed, with loud sound effects and shrill voices and he can _almost_ place the title of that one recently released generic shoujo anime he’s seen advertisements for, but not quite.

“Shouyou!” cries a little girl with shockingly orange hair as she runs out of the living room and toward him. “You’re late!”

Kei’s plan seems to fly right out of his ears, and he goes rigid when the girl latches onto him, hugging him tight. He can’t remember what he’s supposed to do, so he blinks down at her, motionless.

“I was starting to get worried,” an older woman—Hinata’s mother—chastises as she leans through the archway that leads to the kitchen and into the hallway where Kei is standing, rousing him from his daze. Kei lifts his head slowly and is surprised that the woman is actually taller than he had expected, probably around one hundred seventy-five centimeters, but she still has the same wild, orange hair that is the characteristic feature of the Hinatas. It’s long enough to pool around her shoulders, and it hangs loose and free, similar to the young girl standing nearby.

“Um… Sorry,” Kei says, mumbling it under his breath. “I had to take a detour to help a friend.”

“Was it Tobio-kun?” Hinata’s mother guesses, and Kei feels weird and exposed, uncomfortable under the gaze of someone else’s mother. He’s only ever been asked about one of his friends, Yamaguchi, so having someone else in the question feels _wrong_ somehow, like Yamaguchi is being replaced.

He tells himself that the circumstances are wildly different and forces down his own discomfort. “No, it was another friend. Um… Tsukishima Kei.”

“Isn’t he that boy you don’t get along with?” his mother asks, narrowing her eyes cautiously. “Did he do something bad again?”

”What? No!” Kei says, wrangling his volume into something more indoors-friendly at the last moment. He’s surprised that his mom knows about him already, as if he didn’t think he existed in Hinata’s world outside of the Karasuno volleyball team. It was a naive thought, but it’s still difficult to accept now. “He’s… just a friend now. We’re getting along.” As well as they _can_ get along, at least.

His mother looks doubtful and hums a little bit as she considers this. “Well… if you need me to rough him up for you, just let me know.” She finishes her threat with a light-hearted chuckle, her dark eyes crinkling good-naturedly and Kei can see exactly where Hinata gets his smile. It’s almost endearing, when he thinks about it this way.

On Hinata though, it’s still obnoxious and too-bright and blinding. Kei is already blind enough. “Don’t worry about it,” he says, ignoring his thoughts on Hinata’s mother and her smile. “We’re getting along better these days.” Even if the circumstances in which they are getting along are more along the lines of forced allyship than willing friends. The effect is the same regardless.

“That’s good to hear,” His mother says with another bright smile. It’s _exactly_ where Hinata gets his. “At least you made it just in time for dinner.” She turns to face the little girl who’s been standing off to the side of the hallway, looking between them as they carry on their conversation. “Natsu, can you help me set the table? And Shouyou, go put your stuff away and come back downstairs to eat. Hurry up.”

“Y–yes,” Kei says, shuffling off obediently. He climbs the stairs and makes his way to Hinata’s room, hoping that the directions Hinata gave were correct. When he opens the door on the right to find a volleyball and a few sports magazines scattered across the floor, an unmade, messy bed, and boys’ clothes piled up haphazardly along the wall, Kei breathes out a sigh of relief, grateful that he made the right guess the first time around.

He tosses the bag onto the floor and takes a moment to collect himself. He runs his hands down his face, breathing steadily, and then backs up into the wall, letting himself sink to the floor.

It’s been only about five minutes, maybe ten at most, and he’s ready to leave, to run away and never look back. Nothing bad has even happened, unless he counts the way Hinata’s mom apparently knows him as some mean kid who keeps picking on Hinata.

He supposes he should have seen it coming, since that’s basically who he is to Hinata. Just a standard-grade bully who spends way too much time making Hinata’s life miserable. Kei can’t exactly help that Hinata irritates the living shit out of him, but he at least can admit that he’s probably taken it too far in some ways.

But he’s not willing to think about this right now. There’s no point to it. He can’t do anything about it right now anyway, when he’s trapped inside someone else’s home and he’s all alone. So he ignores the slight twinge of regret that bubbles up in his heart and stifles it, resolving to deal with it later. This is what he’s best at, anyway, what he’s most comfortable with. Is it healthy to shove down his feelings until he’s emotionally numb? Absolutely not. But he’s not looking for healthy coping mechanisms right now. He’s looking for something _normal_ in this sea of unknown, when he doesn’t even have Hinata to support him, like he did when they were staying over at his house.

He doesn’t know when Hinata had become some source of comfort for him, some kind of steady rock, some kind of _normal_ in his life, but he’s not ready to unpack that, either. There’s nothing about this situation that’s normal, and so he convinces himself that if he and Hinata were to switch back somehow, they’ll go their separate ways, and Hinata will no longer be the same kind of normal in his life.

He doesn’t want to think about why his stomach sinks at that thought.

And so his defense mechanism acts up again and stifles those feelings until he can’t feel anything anymore. His mind feels almost light when he pushes himself up from the floor and he takes one last look around Hinata’s dark room, and then he leaves, pulling the door quietly shut behind him.

Even from the second floor, he can hear loud laughter, loud banging and rattling, loud television. Hinata’s house, Kei learns, is _loud._ It makes sense, then, that Hinata is also a loud person, because he’s grown up in this boisterous, foolhardy environment and that’s _his_ normal.

A pang of loneliness strikes at his heartstrings as he descends the staircase to greet Hinata’s loud, excitable family.

The smells of the kitchen hit him before he reaches the landing and he feels his mouth watering and his stomach grumbling. He follows the smell as if in a trance into the kitchen and stops cold when his family looks up at him, as if they’re expecting him to do something. He doesn’t know what that is.

“Is dinner ready?” he asks, hoping that it’ll get those eyes off of him.

It seems to work, because Hinata’s father’s mouth melts into a comfortable, easy grin. “Natsu and your mother just finished setting the table. Sit down and join us!”

Kei doesn’t have the stomach to refuse. It’s growling intensely, beckoning him to eat and eat until he bloats. The spread before him is bigger than anything he’s ever seen at his own house: vegetables, rice, and fish all seem to dance around him as he listens to his stomach and takes a seat next to Natsu. He’s almost disappointed that his plate is still empty.

“Let’s eat!” his mother says with a wide, proud smile on her face, watching Kei with some kind of unbridled glee as he takes in the meal. The others repeat the formality in turn. “You look starving, Shouyou. Haven’t you been eating well?”

“Oh, um, yeah,” he says, ignoring the pang of emptiness in his belly. “There’s just a lot of food here.” He gestures a little toward the food even as he grabs his chopsticks and starts piling meat onto his plate.

“Don’t tell me your friend hasn’t been feeding you properly,” his mom chuckles.

“No, he’s fine,” Kei says, no longer listening completely anyway. He’s too entranced by the rice he’s piling into his mouth, his stomach gurgling louder with every morsel he swallows. He can’t remember the last time he was this hungry, the last time he’s put so much work into strenuous aerobic exercise. Hinata works too much, too hard on a regular basis. It’s no wonder he can run and jump to the extremes that he does, and it’s no wonder that he can make it seem so easy, even when Kei can’t manage to do the same even while stuck _inside_ Hinata’s supposedly perfectly toned body.

Of course, he doesn’t have nearly as much willpower as Hinata does. It’s only natural that Hinata would be able to push himself to higher heights and longer sprints and everything else that no mere mortal could dream of. The thought doesn’t stop Kei from feeling jealous of Hinata’s utter perfection, but it helps him rationalize his feelings into submission so that he can concentrate on the more physical, more tangible food in front of him.

He chews with a purpose, stuffing food into his mouth as quickly as he can and ignoring the small talk between Hinata’s parents. If he finishes quickly, he can get away from them.

“How was school, Shouyou?” his father asks, looking at him expectantly.

It takes a moment to register that the short, stocky man is talking to _him._ “Oh, uh, fine,” he mumbles through a mouthful of food.

His mom quirks an eyebrow, amused at the spectacle. “Don’t eat so fast, Shouyou. You’ll get a belly ache.”

Kei really doesn’t want to slow down, but he makes a show of putting his chopsticks to his lips more mindfully anyway.

“Shouyou!” the girl—Natsu, his dad had said—calls, pulling on his shirt sleeves hard so that he has no choice but to look her way. “I drew a self portrait in art today!”

Kei nods. “That’s really nice.” He hopes it doesn’t come out sarcastic.

“But Minako took the orange crayon so I had to use the green one!” She giggles. “I look like a broccoli. Do you wanna see it later?”

“Yeah, sure,” Kei says, trying to talk around the awkwardness lumped in his throat. “It sounds cute.”

“Did you do anything interesting in school, Shouyou?” his dad asks, and Kei really wishes they would stop calling him that. It makes his skin itch like there are bugs crawling just beneath the surface, and he wants to claw this skin off of him just to prove he’s not their son.

“Just the usual,” he answers instead. “Morning practice, classes, afternoon practice.”

His parents give each other a look before turning back to him, eyebrows pinched as if something is wrong. He doesn’t like having them both staring at him at the same time, giving him That Look that says they’re onto him, that they’ve figured out something isn’t quite right with him.

“Pretty boring day then, right?” his mom tries with a soft, confused smile. “We all have those sometimes. You don’t need to worry about it.”

Kei wonders if Hinata is the kind of person who would take a question like “how was your day” and actually spell out the details in a dramatic story. He answers the question before he finishes the thought because _of course_ Hinata would be that kind of person. Hinata bathes under whatever spotlight is given to him.

Strike one.

Natsu leans over her food, her hair dipping onto her plate and collecting some of the rice grains at the tips. “Magical Kokona is getting another season! Will you watch it with me?”

His mom reaches over the table and pushes Natsu back, brushing the grains of rice out of her hair. “Don’t lean into your food, Natsu.”

“Sorry, mom!” she says, then whips her head back to face Kei, her eyes bugging out of her skull. “So? So? Please?”

Kei frowns down at her. “I’ll probably be really busy with the volleyball club and all…”

Natsu’s eyes get bigger, and Kei didn’t know that was even possible. “What?” she says, a pout in her voice. “But you promised you’d watch it with me!”

Of course Hinata would watch magical girl anime with his sister. Of course he would.

Strike two.

Kei sighs and nods. “Right, sorry. I’ll try to make time.”

Natsu grins brightly and shoves her chopsticks into her rice. “I can’t wait! Kokona is gonna kick butt!”

His father’s face twists with amusement. “Language, Natsu.”

“Sorry!” she says, very obviously not sorry at all. Kei smirks. The Hinatas are all cut from the same cloth, apparently.

No one says anything to him for a few minutes, finally giving him space to finish eating. He shovels the food into his mouth as quickly as he can until he’s had his fill, and then he pushes the chair back with a contented sigh and stands from the table, gathering his plate into his hands.

His parents stare at him like he’s committed a grave sin.

“Where are you going?” his mom asks in a warning tone. “Dinner’s not done yet.”

Strike three.

“Oh, um, sorry,” Kei says, sinking back in his seat.

“Did you forget your manners while you were at that Tsukishima boy’s house?” his father demands through a bite of food. “Wait until everyone’s done to excuse yourself.”

“Right,” Kei says, scuffing his socked feet along the kitchen floor.

No one even says anything to him after that, but they do give him worried glances, as if they’re expecting him to jump into the conversation at any point. Kei has no idea who Aunt Kanna and Uncle Riku are anyway, so he couldn’t join in even if he wanted to.

When they’re finally done eating and talking about every topic under the sun, he goes to leave before his mother’s voice stops him again. “Can you help me clear the table, Shouyou?”

He turns around and grabs a few dishes in his arms, trying hard not to sigh. He should be more grateful for the meal he was given, and truthfully he doesn’t mind helping clean up, but dinner was exhausting and he feels like if he doesn’t get away as soon as possible, Hinata’s family will figure everything out.

Because she helped set the table, Natsu is released into the wild of the Hinata house, and she runs full speed into the living room, gushing about some drawing that she absolutely _has_ to finish as soon as possible.

He doesn’t talk to his mother, instead keeping as quiet and expressionless as possible, and he catches her glancing over every so often as if she’s checking on him, making sure he’s okay. She sends him that obnoxious, curious look, and Kei has to bite down on the irritation that spikes through him. That Look has bled over even to his home life (though it isn’t exactly _his_ home), and he’s starting to think he’ll never escape it, that he’ll always be subject to weird looks because he can’t perform well enough to pass as Hinata.

But she doesn’t say anything. She cleans off the last dish and lets him run off without a word, even though Kei can see the concern in the way her lips curve down and her eyebrows pull in and her forehead creases with deep worry lines. He doesn’t say anything though, and neither does she.

When the last dish is washed and dried, she sighs and turns to him, a serious look on her face. “Are you feeling okay, kiddo?”

Kei swallows. “Yeah, I’m fine. Is something wrong?”

“Did you have a bad day at school? Did that _boy_ —” she says _boy_ like one might say _criminal_ or _irredeemable asshole,_ “—do something to you?”

“Who, Tsu–Tsukishima?” he asks, playing with his fingers nervously. “No, nothing happened.”

“You’ve been real quiet all day,” his mom says, leaning down a little so that they’re eye level. “I’m just worried about you.”

“You don’t need to worry,” Kei assures her, hating the way it comes out so emotionally. He doesn’t _want_ to worry Hinata’s family, and he hates that he can’t perform to Hinata’s standards of normal.

His mom frowns at him for a second longer, then ruffles his hair gently. “All right. But I’m here if you need anything, okay? Don’t keep secrets now.”

Kei feels bad.

“Your father is here for you, too.” She smiles and then looks past him into the living room, raising her voice. “Isn’t that right, darling?”

“Absolutely!” calls his father from the other room, very obviously not knowing what he’s agreeing to, and the way his mom giggles seems to lighten the mood instantly. Kei melts into it. They’re just like Hinata, all carbon copies of each other.

“Thanks,” Kei says, shifting from side to side. Even if this family is warm and inviting, he’s still uncomfortable, unused to these kinds of family dynamics and the noise and the Hinata clones.

His mom ruffles his hair again and then stands up straight. “All right, you’re free to go. Make sure you finish your homework this time!”

Kei nods woodenly and backs away, returning to his room without another hitch. And he’s finally free.

His heart is beating loudly and rapidly, a drum line of timpanis echoing in his ribcage, but his shoulders feel lighter. The pressure is off him, and he doesn’t have to act anymore.

The first thing he does is reach for his phone. He starts looking through his contact list for Hinata Shouyou, but stops short when he remembers that this phone belongs to Hinata and he’s got the wrong number.

He finds the entry labeled Tsukishima Kei after a few more seconds and sends a short email.

 _To: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_  
_Subject:_ _  
_ _how are things going?_

It doesn’t take but a couple of minutes to get a response, which Kei is grateful for.

 _From: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_  
_Subject: Re:_ _  
_ _good enough! your mom thought i ate too much sugar today lol!! (ノ*°▽°*) your house is so quiettttttt_

Figures. No one really talked much anymore, since Akiteru left for college.

 _To: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_  
_Subject: Re: Re:_ _  
_ _your family is nice i guess. they’re all exactly like you_

He sends the email and hopes that Hinata can’t tell what he’s actually thinking, because even if they _are_ nice they’re still terrifying and Kei wants to stay as far away from them as possible.

 _From: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_  
_Subject: Re: Re:_ _  
_ _awwwww you called me nice!! softyshima strikes again!_

 _To: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_  
_Subject: Re: Re: Re:_ _  
_ _i take it back, they’re nothing like you_

 _From: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_  
_Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re:_ _  
_ _ah yes, the much more common meanieshima makes his return. will we ever see softyshima again? only time will tell!_

Kei clicks his tongue, but he can’t find it in him to be irritated with Hinata’s teasing. It’s too good-natured, too lighthearted.

 _To: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_  
_Subject: moron_ _  
_ _maybe if you weren’t so annoying i wouldn’t be so mean_

 _From: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_  
_Subject: Re: moron_ _  
_ _no, i think meanness is just in your blood. you must have been born with it_

Kei lifts his eyebrows at the email but doesn’t respond this time, and instead he throws Hinata’s phone down on the bed beside him and follows its trajectory, flopping down on the mattress and burying his face into the pillow. He had thought talking to someone would help pass the time and ease his nerves, but the clock is still creeping forward far too slowly and he’s still acutely aware that he’s in a stranger’s home without any way out.

It’s only about eight o’clock, if that. Even now, he can hear chatter and laughter from downstairs as Hinata’s family all gather around the television and spend time with each other. They’re probably wondering where he is, since Kei can vividly imagine Hinata downstairs with them every night, talking their ears off about volleyball.

Kei buries the pit of envy that forms in his stomach with rationalized thoughts about Hinata’s outgoing, extroverted nature. He stays in the bed, even if he itches to go see what Hinata’s family could possibly be so happy about.

It’s only about eight o’clock, and Kei has no idea what he’s supposed to do. He looks around the room and discovers that Hinata owns no books of his own, or at least none that he can see under the mess that clutters every square meter of space. So much for reading to pass the time.

He considers emailing Yamaguchi, or maybe even responding to Hinata, but he doesn’t move toward his phone and it doesn’t magically jump toward him. So he stays that way, face-down on the bed as he thinks about random things, one thought moving to the other and always, always returning to Hinata in some way.

It makes sense, since he’s been caught up in Hinata’s life far more intimately than he should have ever been, but it’s almost unsettling how he manages to creep into every thought.

He blames it on the fact that he’s inside Hinata’s body and leaves it at that.

And then he decides that he wants nothing to do with these thoughts, so he rolls off the bed and falls the dozen centimeters or so to the floor, then crawls over to his bag to grab his homework for the day. It’ll be his first time doing Hinata’s homework on his own, but class 1-1 is so easy that he has no doubt in his mind that he’ll complete it easily enough.

He scrambles to the side of the room where there’s a small table with everything _but_ school supplies littering its surface. After pushing it all to the floor (the room is so dirty already that it barely even adds to the mess), he sits down and grabs a pencil and the papers and scribbles away furiously at the various subjects until it’s done.

It takes longer than he expected, with the pages of classic literature he has to read, but it doesn’t exceed his expectations in the slightest.

It’s half past nine.

He’s bored. He decides that he’ll go to bed after a bath, because now it’s suitably late and going to sleep sounds better than staying up and doing nothing.

He exits his room quietly, sneaking around like he’s some kind of spy in an action movie. He’s not quiet enough, though, and as he passes one of the doors upstairs it slides open, revealing a very short and very tired Natsu.

“Shouyou?” she asks, rubbing at her eyes. Her eyelids keep drooping, like she’s fighting to stay awake.

“Yeah?” he asks, subconsciously backing up against the opposite wall, away from her. It’s like some part of his mind is convinced that if he’s close enough, she’ll be able to tell that he’s not her brother.

“You’re not him.”

Kei’s heart freezes, clenching tightly in his chest. He feels woozy, his legs weak, as he tries his best to keep an even stare at her. She looks at him, fumbling around with the hem of her nightgown, and she looks innocent, as if she didn’t just say a completely earth-shattering comment with a totally straight face.

“I’m… what?” he asks, coughing out a chuckle to pretend like he has no idea what she’s talking about. “What do you mean, I’m not him? I’m not who?”

“You’re not my brother,” she says, clarifying herself. She’s frowning, but she doesn’t look upset. At least, she doesn’t look upset in the darkness of the hallway, with shadows hiding her face and blurring the lines between her form and the blackness of her bedroom behind her.

“That—that doesn’t make any sense. I’m… Shouyou, right?” Kei says, grasping at straws. His heart is pounding in his chest, and he feels like he can’t breathe, his breaths coming quicker and quicker with each passing moment.

Natsu just shakes her head, but she reaches out her hand to grasp at his. She holds it gently, softly, turning it over and inspecting every line that’s etched into foreign skin that Kei isn’t familiar enough with yet. He thinks Natsu probably knows Hinata’s hand better than he does. “You’re not Shouyou,” she affirms. She doesn’t sound angry or accusing.

Kei wants to scream and lash out, his sudden terror spiking through him with a force that wracks his brain and forces a shudder down his spine. “Th–that’s…”

“It’s okay,” Natsu says, and she looks at him with soft eyes, her mouth upturned into a tiny, barely-there smile. “Because Shouyou’s okay, right?”

Kei doesn’t know what to say, so he nods. “It’s… a game,” he says lamely. “We’re just playing a game.”

Natsu’s mouth drops open into a little circle as she comes to some conclusion. “Oh!” she exclaims, dropping Kei’s hand in favor of clapping hers together.

“So you—you can’t tell anyone, not even mom and dad,” Kei continues, leaning down just enough that they’re eye level with each other. “It’s a secret.”

He reaches out and hesitantly puts his hand on her head, ruffling the bright orange hair that’s already become tangled and messy from sleeping on it. She giggles and nods, excited to be in on the joke. “Okay! Will you still play with me?”

Kei can’t help the smile the melts onto his face. “Of course I will.”

He still doesn’t know how to behave around children, but Natsu is open and honest with him, and so, so much like Hinata, that Kei feels a warmth spread in his chest. He’s already promised Hinata that he’ll do his best to keep his sister happy, so agreeing to this doesn’t feel like anything new.

“Is it a long game?” Natsu asks, reaching up and placing her hands on top of Kei’s, forcing him to keep playing with her hair. “Will I get to see Shouyou soon?”

Kei’s chest constricts and aches when he knows he can’t answer her. “Um… we don’t know how long the game will last,” he says, hedging around the truth. “But I’ll bring your brother here soon. I promise.”

Natsu positively _beams_ at that, grinning from ear to ear. It’s so wide that Kei thinks it’ll split her face in two halves, and he feels his own cheeks ache just from imagining it. She looks just like Hinata, and Kei is bombarded with the fact that everyone in this house is so much like him, so open and honest and carefree.

“You know,” Natsu says, he face going serious all of a sudden as she thinks, “you may not be my brother, but you’re not a bad person.”

Kei can’t keep the blush off his face when she says that, and he coughs into his fist to avoid responding. “You should… get to sleep. It’s late.”

Natsu yawns and pulls away, leaving Kei’s arm to hang limply between them. “Okay, you too.”

Kei chuckles awkwardly, his face still warm. “Yeah, me too.”


	8. step 08. ougiminami

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But you… are you sure you’re gonna be okay?” Yamaguchi asks again. “You’re not you-know-who.” He emphasizes it like he’s talking about _Voldemort_ instead of the guy standing right next to him, but it’s better than name-dropping Hinata right in front of the entire team.

Everyone keeps looking at him like he’s going to explode, like they’re waiting for him to melt down in the middle of the arena. Of course that won’t happen because he’s _not_ Hinata, but they don’t know that, and so they stare, waiting with bated breath for something to happen, as if they think any sudden movement will finally set him off.

Nishinoya is surprised when the _real_ Hinata excuses himself to the bathroom with a queasy face and a hand pressed to his lips, Yamaguchi patting him sympathetically on the back. But still, they think nothing of it, and they continue to stare at Kei, instead.

“I’m not going to barf,” he says when he’s finally sick of his seniors treating him like a bomb that’s about to go off.

“But last time—!” Tanaka starts, and Kei raises a hand to cut him off.

“I’m fine.”

They don’t seem to believe him.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Azumane asks gently, hesitantly, and he looks far more anxious about their first volleyball match in the Spring Interhigh Preliminaries than Kei has ever felt about the sport in his life. “You haven’t really been… yourself lately, you know?”

Kei stifles the sigh that threatens to come out and plasters on a grin instead, hoping it looks natural. “I’m all right, really. I’m just focused on winning the match.”

Azumane bites at his lip but lets it go, knowing he has no answers for Kei’s weird behavior. Kei will take that and roll with it because as long as they’re nowhere near to guessing the truth, everything is fine. As far as his teammates know, Tsukishima Kei and Hinata Shouyou are still the same first-years they’ve known since they joined the team; there’s just something off about them that they can’t seem to place.

And that’s just fine and dandy, according to Kei. Let them think what they want to think. They’ll never figure it out.

“Listen up!” Coach Ukai calls, gathering the Karasuno volleyball team around him (sans Hinata and Yamaguchi, who have yet to return from the bathroom). “This is our chance. The Spring Interhigh will come and go faster than you realize, and we’ll be on our way to Nationals before you know it.”

Kei watches Azumane and Sugawara shift around nervously, like they’re not expecting to win even their first match. Kei, of course, has no expectations, because if he expects nothing then he can’t be disappointed. But it’s still unnerving, in a way, to see his seniors so worried, like they’ve already resigned themselves to failure.

The nervous duo is expanded into a quartet when Hinata and Yamaguchi return from the bathroom only moments later, mumbling under their breaths about terrifying punk-looking guys. Kei wonders what that has to do with anything, but he has no intention of asking.

His questions are answered regardless when a team of blue and white jerseys passes them in the hall. About half of them have the same air about them that Tanaka does, like if you bump into them accidentally they’ll do everything in their power to rip your head off and perhaps fry it up and eat it for dinner, if they feel so inclined.

They’re not so tall, not so intimidating, Kei thinks. Or they wouldn’t be, if he wasn’t stuck in a body that caps out at one hundred sixty-two centimeters, a body that’s so small a light breeze could knock him over. And when Kei looks up and up and up at the crowd of punks, he can’t suppress the shudder that runs down his back.

He understands a little bit why Hinata is always so nervous before a match.

“Let’s go out there and give it our all!” Sawamura shouts, clenching his fist in the air as if they’ve already won. It’s a nice break from the anxious energy that’s begun to run through their team, slowly and surely suffocating them before they’ve even started.

“Don’t let go of the feeling of defeat from the Seijoh match,” Coach Ukai warns, taking the time to individually look each of them in their eyes. “Remember that loss and that frustration, and use it to become stronger.”

There’s a chorus of “yes!” and “all right!” that echoes through the hall of the stadium, and then they set off to their first match of the Spring Interhigh Preliminary Games.

“Are you going to be all right?” Yamaguchi asks in the quietest whisper he can muster, leaning down so that only Kei can hear him.

Kei grunts to show his obvious upset with Yamaguchi speaking so plainly about their situation, but he answers anyway. “I’ll be fine. Shouldn’t you be asking Tsukishima that instead?” He stumbles over his own name and winces. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to referring to Hinata that way.

Yamaguchi smiles and looks over at Hinata, who still looks uneasy but is finally walking straighter and more confidently than before. “I think he’ll be okay. He’s more excited about this being his first match in your—well, you know. _Like that_.”

Kei thinks that, even for all of his own slip-ups and inability to keep up the act in public, Yamaguchi has it even worse. He still can’t quite wrap his head around the idea of body swaps, since he hasn’t had to physically experience it, and so Kei has more experience than him in that area. He has no choice in the matter, but for Yamaguchi, who has only known about the switch for a few days, it feels more like a game of make-believe, and so he finds himself stumbling over phrases and putting Kei and Hinata in uncomfortable situations when he messes up their names or says something just slightly left of conventional.

Which is why Kei looks around frantically, checking to make sure that no one heard Yamaguchi’s almost-slip-up. When he sees that everyone’s looking forward toward the court, totally ignoring them, he breathes a sigh of relief.

Yamaguchi continues, ignoring Kei’s attempted warning signs. “He was nervous at first, but he’s not as worried about all the tall guys on the opposing team anymore. Most of them are shorter than he is now.”

Kei grimaces.

“But you… are you sure you’re gonna be okay?” Yamaguchi asks again. “You’re not you-know-who.” He emphasizes it like he’s talking about _Voldemort_ instead of the guy standing right next to him, but it’s better than name-dropping Hinata right in front of the entire team. Kei appreciates the effort, at the very least.

“I’ll be fine,” he repeats, getting quite tired of the entire conversation. He wants to be on the court _now_ , if only to escape Yamaguchi’s badgering and questioning and worry. But they still have a few moments, and he’s stuck.

Yamaguchi hums like he doesn’t believe him, and he catches Kageyama staring at him from out the corner of his eye. Then they finally step onto the court, and everyone snaps into focus.

There are introductions and handshakes and polite bows and it all happens in a flurry that’s too fast for Kei to really take in. And then he’s there, standing on the court, and he realizes once again just how small he is.

His heart beats in his chest, a drum against his ribcage that’s so loud he’s certain the Ougiminami volleyball team can hear it clearly on the other side of the court.

The whistle blows, and the game starts.

And suddenly Kei realizes he’s not meant to be here.

The starting lineup has him on the vanguard, right next to Kageyama because Ukai’s banking on the weird duo’s quicks. And that would be just fine, if Kei was part of that duo. But he’s just a normal guy, a middle blocker who can just manage to pull off a first tempo quick. He’s not particularly great at volleyball, and he’s never been bad at it either. He’s average.

The ball is coming toward him. First tempo.

Hinata’s body can jump higher than Kei could ever hope to. Seeing the world from so high up should be normal for a guy like him, sitting comfortably at one hundred eighty-eight centimeters, but Hinata can _jump_ , and there’s something special about that. It’s like getting the taste of something delicious, not too much to get used to it, but just enough to keep wanting more.

He jumps. Reaches out. Spikes.

And yet, even with that height, Kei can’t seem to tap into its full potential. His will isn’t strong enough, he supposes. His mind isn’t prepared. He doesn’t _want_ it badly enough.

The ball is spiked straight into the opposing middle blocker’s arms, just barely above the net. It falls to the ground. And Ougiminami gets the first point.

There’s shouting from the other side of the net as their opponents celebrate, and they seem to stifle the quick, sharp voices of his own teammates.

“Don’t mind,” Kageyama says, but everything from his voice to his body language screams that he’s frustrated, that his toss was too easy _not_ to get it over.

He nods imperceptibly and lets out a low breath, a futile attempt to calm his nerves. He turns away and gets back in formation for the next rally, effectively ignoring the rest of the team, too embarrassed to face them.

He thinks he shouldn’t be embarrassed. They may have all kinds of expectations for Hinata, but he’s not Hinata. He’s Kei, a mere mortal; he can’t possibly live up to the standards set by a god.

Kageyama tosses to him in the next rally, too. Maybe he still has hopes that his partner can still play. He hears Hinata screaming from the sidelines, and that alone is enough to tear a flush across his face. He jumps, blocking everything out as best he can.

His timing is off by a few seconds, and when he spikes, the ball wobbles in the air, just barely making it across the net.

By some miracle, it hits the court, and they turn the tides back in the favor of Karasuno.

But it’s not enough, apparently.

“What are you doing, dumbass?” Kageyama asks, stomping over to him with clenched fists and a set jaw and wide, angry eyes.

“Kageyama…” Sawamura warns, but it’s too quiet, too hesitant, and Kageyama ignores it.

“You’re barely jumping, and you’re not moving at all!” he shouts, grabbing at his jersey. Kei is jerked forward into Kageyama, stumbling as he loses his footing, and he thinks that he probably looks really lame right now.

He puts his hand on Kageyama’s and tears it off of him, glaring up and meeting his gaze evenly. “Sorry. I’ll do better.”

He doesn’t.

Rally after rally, point after point, he misses the spikes that Kageyama tosses to him. They’re nothing difficult, nothing even _close_ to the difficulty of Hinata’s freak quick. But still he misses them. Because he’s not Hinata, he’s not some volleyball freak, he’s not some pig-headed bundle of energy. He’s just himself, a normal guy, and he was content to live that way.

When Ougiminami gets their fifteenth point, Coach Ukai calls for a time out.

Kei drags his feet toward the sidelines, but Ukai’s yelling before they even round up. “Hinata! You’re freezing up out there!”

He jerks his head up, embarrassed at being singled out like this, and he shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he says for what seems like the hundredth time that day. He can’t tell how true the apology is, but it doesn’t seem to matter anyway.

“You’re missing easy tosses, and your movements are stiff. Did you not sleep last night?” Ukai scolds, leaning in so close that Kei has to take a step back so he doesn’t go cross-eyed.

“N–no, I’m fine,” Kei stammers.

“You’re way off your game today,” he says, and Kei can feel the awkward shuffling around him as if it’s a pulsing, throbbing mass of nervous energy aimed directly at him.

He feels exposed, but he doesn’t know what to do about it. He’s been working as hard as he can, or maybe just as hard as he’s willing to push himself. But even that in itself is a miracle for him, because he’s definitely working harder than he’s ever worked before, pushing himself higher and running faster and trying his best to catch the quicks that Kageyama tosses for him. And yet, apparently, it isn’t enough.

He knew it wasn’t. He knew from the get-go that nothing he did would be on par with Hinata’s usual prowess because he’s _not_ Hinata and he’s _not_ good enough. He’s the moon, and he’s content to sit in the shadows while Hinata steals all the spotlight for himself. He’s uncomfortable being shoved into the light so suddenly, and he feels blinded, lost, unsure of himself, and totally out of his league.

“I’ll do better,” Kei insists, but he’s lying through his teeth. Ukai seems to notice that, too, but he doesn’t say anything to it. His glare is suspicious and worried and doubtful but the timeout ends and before Ukai can speak again Kei is running back to the court, just in time to serve.

He takes the ball and lets out a long, nervous sigh, shaking his free hand to let out some of his nerves. Even if he _knows_ there’s no way to beat Hinata at his own game, even if he knows he can never _be_ Hinata, even if he knows he can never feel that bottomless hunger and drive to succeed the way Hinata does, he still doesn’t want to mess this up. He still wants to do his best.

It’s just a shame that his best isn’t good enough.

He tosses the ball into the air and smacks it lightly when it comes back down, willing it to go over the net.

It doesn’t. Of course. It’s just one more infraction against him, one more embarrassment to live with. He’s had enough of those this entire game, and he’s even starting to get used to it. It’s not the same as practice, where there’s nothing riding on his lack of skill (his lack of height). Here, every point matters, and every flub matters even more.

Kageyama shouts wordlessly his frustration when the ball drops to the floor right next to him. Azumane attempts a quick “don’t mind,” but it’s half-hearted and nearly whispered because even _he_ can’t muster the kindness to lie to him.

Kei clicks his tongue, but the rest of the team has already diverted their attention back to the game, too focused on Ougiminami’s serve. The ball comes over the net (show-off) and comes flying straight toward Kei, and he puts his arms out to receive it.

But his guess is off by a centimeter or two, and he misses the ball completely. It flies into his hands and then drops to the ground, bouncing along the floor with thumps that are louder than even the cheers from the opposing team.

Kei narrows his eyes at the offending ball, and he’s so far into his glaring match with the inanimate object that he’s startled when the whistle blows. When he looks up, his heart stops.

Narita is standing on the sidelines with a card in his hand that reads 10. He can feel eyes on him, either curious or furious, as he steps toward his teammate. Each of his steps coincides with another beat of his heart, which batters wildly against his ribcage and screams rhythmic insults at him.

“Sorry, Hinata,” Narita says when Kei takes the card, his head turned down to the ground. He can’t stand the idea of looking at anyone right now, not when his face feels hot and his eyes sting and he feels so worn out and heavy-hearted.

He drops the card on the bench next to Ukai and starts to walk toward the warm-up box when Ukai calls, “Take this time to figure out what you’re doing. If you’re feeling confident, I’ll put you back in next set.”

Kei nods robotically, barely listening to the words. He doesn’t care. He shouldn’t care. This is what he wanted, right? He knows he’s not as good as Hinata, and so he couldn’t possibly make up for his height in the ways that Hinata is able to. He doesn’t even care all that much about volleyball, anyway. It’s just a club. There will be more games in the future. He doesn’t care.

He doesn’t.

But his chest hurts and he feels like he can’t breathe and there’s a distinct, roiling disappointment that wracks through his veins and clouds his mind that prevents him from thinking about anything other than his absolute and utter failure. He’d never even considered that he’d _actually_ be benched. He’d always been an asset to his teams, since he was usually the tallest member. Even in grade school, even in middle school, he was always on the court, always defaulted to a regular. He’d never even thought it was possible to be benched.

But he’s not the tallest person on the team anymore. He’s the high-risk, high-reward shrimp who’s nothing more than a liability if he’s not playing to his full potential. Or rather, _Hinata’s_ full potential.

And he’s… he’s not Hinata.

Someone pats him on the back, shocking Kei out of his thoughts. When he looks up, Sugawara is smiling down at him, though that smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s okay to be off your game every once in a while,” he says, and it’s so genuine that it _hurts_.

“Yeah,” he says, keeping his voice as level as possible.

“Just take some time to cool down and clear your mind, and I’m sure you’ll be back in the game in no time!” Sugawara says, and he sounds so confident that Kei can’t bear to crush his hopes. There’s a pride in his voice, and Kei wants to believe in it, believe in himself, but _he’s not Hinata_ and he can’t do the things Hinata can do because there’s just _no way_ and he’s just _not good enough_.

There’s a burning jealousy inside him, and Kei hates it. He wants to put the fire out, stop feeling these things and go back to being apathetic and bored and carried by the tide of others. He doesn’t want to feel; he wants to turn it off and stop the flood of insecurity that keeps welling up inside him no matter how much he tries to rationalize that he’s not perfect, not like Hinata.

And the first set comes and goes, and Karasuno takes it without him.

It’s during the set change that Hinata stomps up to him and grabs his shirt, his nostrils flaring as he scowls. He jerks Kei forward and pulls him close, snarling loudly. “What do you think you’re doing?” he shouts, leaning in so their noses are touching and Kei has to go cross-eyed in order to see him. He reaches up and tries to pry Hinata’s hands off him, but the grip is strong and Kei can’t get enough of a hold to make him let go.

“What—?”

“Don’t act all confused!” Hinata yells, and Kei can feel his teammates’ eyes on his back, watching the exchange between them. “You got benched!”

Kei pulls at Hinata’s hands, but the grip is so tight that he can’t break it. “Yeah, I did,” he says as monotone as he can manage. “What do you care?”

“What do I care?” Hinata says, snarling into his face. “You—! You just! Why aren’t you trying?”

“Do you think I’m not trying?” Kei asks, narrowing his eyes dangerously. He picks at Hinata’s hands again but finds they’re still firmly in place.

“Yeah! Because you’re not!” he spits.

“I’m trying as hard as I can,” Kei says, but it comes out much less confident than he’d anticipated. “I’d appreciate if you left me alone.”

“Why, so you can wallow in self-pity?” Hinata grips harder, pulling at Kei’s jersey and bringing him even closer.

“Hey, hey! Calm down!” Ukai steps in and pulls them apart then, finally taking the hint that Hinata’s gone out of control.

But Kei doesn’t want to—can’t—let Hinata have the last word. So he glares at him with as much fire as a raging inferno, or possibly the entire sun, and says, “Sorry we can’t all be _perfect_ like you.”

Hinata freezes, but his face is still contorted with rage and he doesn’t seem to be calming down any time soon. But he’s stiff and unmoving as Ukai pulls him away toward the rest of the starting members, leaving Kei uncomfortably alone.

But Hinata doesn’t let it end there. Of course he doesn’t. “You can do it if you try, you know! You’re better than you think you are!”

It sounds so angry that it doesn’t seem to fit the confidence of the words. It almost sounds like he’s insulting Kei, even if the actual meaning behind his words are relatively encouraging. Kei doesn’t believe them anyway, though, so it doesn’t matter.

As the starting players take up their positions for the next set, Ukai rounds back on him. “You’re totally off the rails today. Either shape up, or you stay off the court.”

“Yes, sir,” Kei says a little too sharply, which Ukai doesn’t take kindly too, if his clenched jaw and narrowed eyes are anything to go by.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, but you need to sort it out if you want to keep playing.” Coach Ukai’s words are harsh, but there’s no malice in his tone. It’s just a statement of fact, and Kei understands it intimately.

So he trudges to the warm-up box, and Sugawara and Nishinoya are waiting there with pale faces and wide eyes.

“Are you okay, Hinata?” Sugawara asks hesitantly, reaching out with what looks to be a comforting hand. But Kei slaps it away, his face turned toward the ground. He can barely see his teammates through Hinata’s dumb orange bangs, but none of them look happy with his little outburst.

“I’m fine,” he insists, but the growl in his throat that bubbles over when he speaks says far more than his empty words could ever hope to.

“Maybe it’s a good thing that you’re sitting out,” Nishinoya says, and even his usual confidence and uplifting excitement is wavering in Kei’s presence.

“I guess so,” he agrees flatly, keeping his voice carefully devoid of any emotion. He doesn’t want anyone to say anything. He just wants them to ignore him. It’s what he’s used to, it’s what he knows, and it’s what he’s comfortable with. He doesn’t want to be the center of attention, his every word scrutinized and picked apart because of some preconceived notion that what he has to say is important.

Nishinoya and Sugawara stare at him uncomfortably, then at each other, unsure of what they can possibly say to him. Good, Kei thinks. It’s better that way. He wants to be left alone, so he can think in peace, so he can exist without someone else invading his space and his privacy. So he can pretend that he’s still himself in some small way, without catering to the expectations of others.

The game ends with both sets taken by Karasuno. Ougiminami vents their frustrations in terrible, gut-wrenching shouts. It’s not something he hasn’t heard before. His own teammates have let such a sound rip from their throats when they lost to Aoba Johsai during the last Interhigh Preliminaries.

But Kei feels detached from it this time. He feels no sympathy for them, no excitement for his own team’s win. He didn’t participate in the match long enough to care. He’s nothing more than an onlooker, and it doesn’t matter that he just so happens to be affiliated with the Karasuno team. He didn’t take place in the match at all. It’s not his victory to claim.

It’s this thought that’s going through his mind on repeat, mechanically on loop because the rest of him is entirely empty, when Yamaguchi takes one of his hands and starts pulling him off the court. Hinata, too, runs up behind them and grabs his other hand, dragging him off before Kei can even protest.

Of course, even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t be able to overpower them because both of them are tall and strong and he’s just a little shrimp. Figures.

They lead him to the bathroom without saying anything. Neither of them look at him. Neither of them speak. They just continue to pull him, dragging him along without any care to whether or not Kei can keep up, and they don’t slow down when he stumbles over his own feet, either.

But as soon as they pass through swinging doors into the bathroom, as soon as they’re alone and in private, Hinata rounds on him again.

“I wasn't done yelling at you!” he shouts, and Kei looks to Yamaguchi helplessly, silently pleading with him to save him from this mess. Yamaguchi shakes his head.

“Listen to Hinata, Tsukki,” he says, nodding at Hinata to continue.

“Why are you acting like you can’t play volleyball anymore?” Hinata cries, waving his arms wildly. Yamaguchi has to duck out of the way so he’s not hit, but Hinata is unaware of his wide movements through his tunnel vision.

Kei gasps sarcastically. “Have you thought that maybe not everyone cares about volleyball as much as you do?”

“That’s not true!” Hinata cries, and Kei chokes on his own disbelief.

“Wh–what?”

“That’s not true for you, I mean,” Hinata corrects, his voice finally lowering and calming down. It’s not quite past the threshold of livid, but it’s an improvement nonetheless. “I’ve seen you play before, and you don’t hate it! I know it’s important to you!”

“Wh—I’m—” Kei cuts himself off with a huff because he doesn’t have any words to counter that with. Obviously he doesn’t _hate_ volleyball. If he did, he wouldn’t have joined the team. But it’s clear that there’s a difference between him and people like… like Hinata, or Bokuto, or anyone else he’s played against in his short time in high school. They’re all so much more into it, so much more excited and motivated than he is. So even if he doesn’t hate volleyball, even if he’d go so far to say he _loves_ volleyball, it’s still so far from what everyone else feels. He might as well hate it.

“It doesn’t matter how well you play!” Hinata insists, pulling Kei out of his spiraling thoughts. “As long as you’re doing your best, you’ll keep improving! I know this situation isn’t the best for you, but—!”

Kei leans in dangerously close, and Hinata’s mouth snaps shut. “That’s why I wanted to get back to normal as soon as possible,” he says slowly, coating each punctuated syllable in venom. “You may like being tall, but not all of us have the ability to go above and beyond in everything they do. Not everyone can keep pushing past their limits to make the impossible possible. Some of us are just normal people.”

“You’re wrong!” Hinata shouts, clenching his fists tightly as if he’s holding himself back from punching Kei. He probably is. “I’m not any different from you! You’re not any more normal than I am!”

Kei scoffs. “I guess you’re too dense to understand, but—”

“But nothing!” Hinata’s shoulders bunch up, his face reddening with anger. “If you want something bad enough, you can get it. That’s something I had to learn, and it’s something you have to learn, too! I don’t _want_ to be stuck like this either, so stop saying I do! It’s nice to be tall and have more of a chance fighting against all the other tall volleyball players, but I would do that if I were still in my own body. Nothing’s changed.”

Yamaguchi sighs. “Tsukki, this may be just a club to you, but it’s more important to Hinata. And since _you’re_ Hinata right now, you can’t mess things up for him. He’s the one who’ll have to deal with the consequences, after all.”

Kei wants to scream, wants to run, wants to do _anything_ but sit here and listen to them chastise him. But he can’t say anything because his mouth isn’t working. He can’t run because his legs aren’t working. So he just stands there frozen in the bathroom, looking between them as they tower over him, their height a weapon that they’re subconsciously using to beat him into submission. It’s working.

“You said you would do your best to be me,” Hinata says, so much more quietly than before. “And I promised I would do my best, too. I don’t want to return to my body only to sit on the bench.”

“I…” Kei has nothing to say, so he trails off. “I can’t.”

“You can’t what?” Hinata asks, his face turning red with his growing frustration. The fluorescent light of the bathroom flickers and creates a glare on his glasses, hiding his eyes so Kei can’t tell what they look like. He can imagine it though, and in his mind they don’t look happy.

“I can’t do it,” he elaborates, shaking his head. “I’m not you.”

“Who cares what you can and can’t do?” Hinata says, stomping his foot. He sounds angry, but his voice is still quiet, softening the edges of his tone. “You’re not even _trying!”_

“How would you know?”

“Because you never try with anything,” Hinata points out, and Kei thinks he probably has a point there.

But he doesn’t respond, just folds his arms across his chest as if attempting to hold his emotions in so they won’t spill over.

“I agree with Hinata,” Yamaguchi pipes in, because that’s the most helpful thing he can do, apparently. “You’re being really lame.”

In a way, it’s reminiscent of Yamaguchi’s outburst back at the Fukurodani training camp, and it makes Kei’s heart skip a beat. He knows he’s not working to his full potential. He knows he’s already given up. He knows he looks lame and defeated and all the other things Hinata’s shouted at him in the last few minutes. But he doesn’t know what else to do. He doesn’t know what else he can _be_.

“I know that,” he snaps, but there’s no fight left in his words, no bite in his tone. “But it’s… hard.”

Yamaguchi eyes him warily, like he doesn’t believe that Kei could ever admit to something being difficult for him. Like his head is so far up his own ass that he can’t see where he’s gone wrong.

It’s a fair assumption to make, really, but it still hurts.

“Then I’ll help you,” Hinata says firmly. “We were training on our own before we switched bodies, and we can keep doing it. And this time, Yamaguchi will be there to help us.”

Kei wants to protest, wants to say that he’d rather puke up three days’ worth of breakfast than spend any more time than necessary with Hinata, and _especially_ with Hinata when they’re playing volleyball because that’s a combination that shakes the earth and topples buildings with its sheer force of will. But he can’t lie to himself, and the idea doesn’t actually turn him off all that much. Hinata’s right; they _were_ practicing on their own for a little bit before this, even if it was just passing balls back and forth. It wouldn’t be difficult to keep that habit up, and it wouldn’t be the worst thing he’s gone through in his life.

And even the thought of spending more time with Hinata doesn’t sound all that bad, anyway. He doesn’t know when his feelings had started to change, but he’s finally come to accept Hinata as one of his friends, and he’s stopped thinking of him as nothing more than a nuisance.

Kei blows out a long sigh. “Fine. Let’s do it.”

Hinata’s face splits into a blinding, radiant smile, and he jumps as high as he can with a whoop of utter joy. “Thank you, Tsukishima!”

“Why are you thanking me?” Kei grumbles under his breath.

“I thought that was going to be a lot harder than it was,” Hinata says, and, well. That’s fair.

Hinata doesn’t wait for him to respond, and instead just grabs Kei’s hand and pulls him into a big, tight hug. It doesn’t last long enough for Kei to even register it, and then he’s being pulled out of the bathroom by only one hand this time. Yamaguchi lags a little behind them, watching the spectacle with amusement lighting up his face.

“Can you let go of me,” Kei demands, jerking a little bit in Hinata’s grasp, but Hinata doesn’t budge, his fingers firmly around Kei’s wrist. “It hurts.”

At that, Hinata drops his arm like he’s been burned. “Sorry, Tsukki!” he exclaims, bowing a little in apology.

“Don’t call me that,” Kei says, mumbling under his breath.

“Than I’ll call you Kei!” Hinata exclaims, like he’s hit the jackpot of suitable names to call him.

“Heh?” Kei says, with way more emotion than he usually puts behind his words. “How did you reach that conclusion?”

“Well, we’re friends, right?” Kei hates that he can’t refute that statement. “So I want to call you something cute! A nickname!”

Kei makes a gagging motion with his finger. “I’d rather die.”

“Then… Kei-chan?” Hinata amends, thinking hard and seriously about this.

“Ugh, that’s even worse.”

“Then Kei it is!” Hinata says it with such a sense of finality that Kei isn’t even sure how to begin arguing against him. “And you can call me Shouyou! Or Shou-chan, or something else. I don’t really care.”

“That sounds like a hassle,” Kei says blandly.

“Friends have nicknames for each other, right?”

Kei grumbles something unintelligible under his breath. “I don’t even call Yamaguchi by a nickname,” he adds a little louder.

“That’s because you’re boring,” Yamaguchi insists, and Kei turns over his shoulder to glare at him.

“But you call Kageyama ‘king’ all the time!”

“Hinata… I don’t think that’s a nickname…” Yamaguchi says from behind them, a tragic smile on his face. His voice is soft and sweet, but Kei can sense the humor behind it, as if he’s trying his best to hold in his laughter.

“When have I _ever_ called Kageyama ‘king’ as a nickname?” Kei says, pulling his mouth into a thin line.

Hinata wrinkles his brow and sticks his lip out in a pout. “I thought you started calling him that as an endearment.”

Kei doesn’t say that somewhere along the line, the name _had_ become less of an insult and more neutral (though definitely _not_ an endearment, absolutely not). Instead, he says, “I didn’t know you knew the word ‘endearment,’ Hinata.”

“I’m not a dummy, Kei-chan!” Hinata says, sticking his tongue out as far as it can go and squeezing his eyes tightly shut.

Kei grimaces at the name he’s apparently been dubbed, but Yamaguchi just snickers. “I think that name’s very fitting for you, _Kei-chan_ ,” he says, his eyes sparkling brightly with humor.

 _“Please_ just call me Kei,” Kei says, holding back a flood of irritation with a flimsily made dam. “At least it’s better than… whatever that is.”

“Kei!” Hinata exclaims, spinning around in a tiny little dance. He stops when he’s facing Kei and beams down at him, putting his large hands on his tiny shoulders. “It’s a cute name.”

Kei sighs, resigning himself to his fate.

Of the two friends he now has, one is soft-spoken and snarky, always willing to throw Kei under the bus for the sake of a joke. The other is loud and obnoxious and tries way too hard to be friendly. Neither are quite ideal, and neither match his own personality in the least.

But, he thinks, he can’t bring himself to hate them. He can’t even bring himself to pity his situation, and he enjoys the idea of having not just one friend, but two to call his own. He’s been a loner with a bad personality for as long as he can remember, and his sarcasm and disinterest with everything have scared too many people away. And yet, these two have somehow stuck like thorns in his side. It’s definitely not the worst situation he’s ever found himself in, even if the circumstances leading up to it aren’t exactly ideal.

Maybe the body swap thing isn’t the end of the world. It _should_ be, he knows that much. It should be terrible and awful and it should have destroyed his life because this is no longer just _his_ life; he’s inexorably bound to Hinata now. But in spite of himself, he finds himself smiling as he walks back with his two friends, one old and one new.

If he hadn’t been stuck in this situation, he and Hinata would never have become friends. He probably would have been okay with that if it was the case.

But this new situation, this weird and inexplicable phenomenon that’s brought him closer to Hinata, isn’t so bad either.


	9. step 09. friends and rivals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Aw, you’re being nice again!” he says, grabbing at Kei’s arm and squeezing it to his chest. “You’re not half bad when you’re being friendly.”
> 
> “I’m not nice,” Kei insists weakly. “Shut up.”

The match against Kakugawa High ends without Kei having played once. It’s okay though. He has a plan. He’s no longer bogged down with feelings of inadequacy. For the most part.

Still, every time a set changed without Narita being switched out, Kei’s heart couldn’t help but sink a little lower. It’s his fault for getting into this situation in the first place, sure, but it doesn’t sting any less. He’ll just have to try harder for the next round of preliminary games.

“Hinata!” Shouyou calls, bounding up to him after they’ve left the gym. “Did you see my spike?”

Kei shoots him a glare that he hopes conveys the message _keep it down you absolute moron_ , but Shouyou either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. Apparently, he’s done pretending to be Kei.

Whatever. It wasn’t working, anyway.

“Yeah, I did,” he says, but he’s still trying to figure out _which_ spike Shouyou’s referring to. Because every one of his attacks were flawlessly executed, absolutely breathtaking to watch. Where Kei’s abilities have been limited by the body swap, Shouyou seems to have only grown and expanded his repertoire.

“Dummyama barely tossed to me all game,” he pouts, a total flip from his exuberance just before. Kei knows that’s not true, though; if anything, Kageyama has been tossing to Shouyou _more_. At least since they switched places. It must be Shouyou’s demanding personality.

“He doesn’t like m—you,” he says with a shrug. “Why would he want to toss to you?”

“It’s because you’re a jerk,” Shouyou mumbles under his breath, surprisingly careful to keep it quiet enough so that no one else hears.

Kei just smirks. He knows that, and Kageyama has made his distaste for Kei well-known. The feeling is mutual, though, so there’s no reason to change it.

“You did great, Tsukishima!” Yamaguchi comes barreling in from behind and jumps onto Shouyou, patting at his back with all the enthusiasm of a child. His eyes are big and excited, and he doesn’t look nearly as upset as Kei feels about sitting out for an entire game.

“Thanks Yamaguchi!” Hinata gushes, gripping his hands tightly and bouncing up and down with him.

“Is Tsukishima celebrating?” whispers Tanaka from somewhere behind them, and Kei throws a quick glare over his shoulder before he can stop himself.

“He must have had a lot of fun this game.” This time it’s Nishinoya gossipping about them, and Kei is no more accepting of their hushed tones and tiny snickers.

He feels more than hears Kageyama approaching their tiny little group. He thinks it’s the way the hairs on his arms raise instinctively, telling him to avoid the danger that is Kageyama on a mission. But he can’t get away, so he sighs and accepts his fate when Kageyama calls, “Hinata.”

“Yes?” he says, turning around with slumped shoulders and a lazy, uninterested face.

“Are you feeling better?” he asks, and there’s _something_ different about his tone that Kei really can’t place. It sounds weird and almost scary on his tongue, like he’s about to snap and go crazy. There’s a quiver in his words, a restraint in his voice, and Kei has no idea what to make of it.

“What do you mean?” Kei asks suspiciously, leaning back in self-preservation.

“You didn’t go to the bathroom before the game,” Kageyama says as if that’s any kind of explanation at all. “I thought that’s why you freaked out during the match against Ougiminami.”

He’s… worried? About Shouyou? Or at least, that’s Kei’s guess. There’s still an angry-looking scowl on his red face, but Kageyama doesn’t radiate anger. There’s no aura around him that screams his killing intent. If anything, the way he shifts his eyes around, not looking directly at Kei, says the exact opposite.

He looks nervous.

It’s almost nauseating, the way Shouyou can wrap anyone around his little finger and make them his friend. The kid has way too much charisma, that’s for sure.

(He doesn’t acknowledge that Shouyou’s done the exact same thing to him, and he doesn’t acknowledge that even now, in his thoughts, just an hour or so after getting permission, he’s calling Shouyou by his given name like they’re childhood friends.)

“Don’t worry,” Kei answers slowly, not entirely sure if he should let Kageyama keep thinking he was sick or if he should tell him the real reason for his utter failure. He’s not sure which route will have him suffer more humiliation.

Kageyama grunts. “Are you going to be okay for the next round?”

“Uh,” Kei hedges, chewing at his lip. “Yeah. Definitely.”

Somehow, Shouyou chooses that moment to return to the conversation, and Kei can see the way he absolutely lights up at that spoken conviction.

Kei wants to smother it and put out that light, and he wants to bathe in it and have it permeate him from the outside in, until he has as much confidence and determination as Shouyou does naturally. He’s not sure what that means.

“I’ll hold you to that, then,” Yamaguchi says, looking Kei up and down with a smirk. There’s a silent message there, and Kei chooses to ignore it.

Kageyama lifts an eyebrow. “You two have gotten real chummy with Hinata lately,” he says, looking pointedly between Yamaguchi and Shouyou. Yamaguchi jumps, his face turning red. He stammers a little, unsure of what to say, and Kei would laugh if he wasn’t still being scrutinized.

And Shouyou just smiles down at all of them without a care in the world, like Kageyama isn’t silently threatening him to stay away from his precious little shrimp. “Yep! We’re all friends now!”

“Friends?” Kageyama spits the word like it’s made of acid. “I didn’t know you were capable of making friends.”

Shouyou’s face turns sour. “I’m much friendlier than you give me credit for, thank you very much!”

“I doubt it,” Kageyama says, glaring straight through Shouyou. “You probably have some ulterior motive under all of this. There’s no way you’d be spending so much time with Hinata if not.”

“Why do you even care, Kageyama?” Shouyou intones, resting his hands on his hips and leaning down. “I think we make excellent friends.”

Kageyama whips around to face Kei, and he feels suddenly very, very exposed. “Well?” Kageyama nearly shouts in his face.

“Well _what?”_ Kei asks, exasperated.

“Are you seriously friends with this asshole?” Kageyama elaborates, no less pissed off.

Kei twiddles his thumbs in front of him as he considers the question. Of course they’re friends now, but he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to answer this question. Would it cause more problems for him in the future? Would Kageyama even _believe_ that someone like him could make friends with someone like Shouyou?

He discards the rhetorical questions and decides that there’s no use overthinking it. “Yeah,” he says, and it sounds so simple and underwhelming compared to the swirl of what-ifs in his mind.

Kageyama’s eyes bug out of his skull like he can’t even _fathom_ this. “Seriously?”

_“Yes,”_ Kei repeats more firmly. “We’re friends. What of it?”

“But how can you—” Kageyama breaks off, shaking his head fiercely. “It’s _Tsukishima._ You know, the guy who’s been nothing but awful since the school year started? Why would you be friends with him?”

“I’m right here, you know!” Shouyou says, sticking out his tongue at Kageyama. Kageyama ignores him, and Yamaguchi pats him on the back sympathetically.

“I don’t know why you’d try to deny it,” Kageyama says, and there’s a malice in his voice that even _Kei_ doesn’t want to trifle with. “It’s not like you’ve ever been interested in being nice to either of us.”

“Well—!” Shouyou starts, but he breaks off and furrows his brow, scratching the side of his nose as he thinks. “I mean, yeah, that’s true, but—but people change all the time, right?”

Kei feels singled out, like not even Shouyou is on his side anymore. It’s not like he didn’t _know_ what Kageyama thought of him, but… It still hurts, in the deep recesses of his soul where he still allows himself to feel human emotions.

“And I’m sure you’re changing for the better, huh?” Kageyama glares at Shouyou, hatred spilling over and leaking out of his every word. Kei can’t help but cringe. He’s surprised that Shouyou hasn’t caved under the pressure yet.

“And what if I am?” Shouyou challenges, puffing out his chest. The light catches his glasses and they glint, and he looks far more intimidating than usual. It’s not helping his case at all, that’s for sure. “What, did you wanna make friends with me first?”

Kageyama recoils, his lips curling back into a sneer. “Hell no!” he shouts. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

Shouyou huffs loudly, slumping over. The glare disappears from his glasses and Kei can see that his eyes are unfocused and glancing off to the side, and he actually looks upset. Kei can’t figure out why Shouyou is going through so much trouble to defend him, but this is no time to ask that question.

Then like a saving grace, Yachi bounces over to them, her eyes frantically flitting between all four of them and her mouth curved down in a deep frown. “Um!” she squeaks, just loud enough to let them know she’s there. And even Kei doesn’t dislike her enough to ignore her, so they all collectively turn her way and watch as she fumbles around with various sentence starters. “Well—uh, I—you guys are—”

“Are you okay, Yachi-san?” Shouyou asks, and his voice is quiet and soothing. Yachi seems to relax into it.

“Y–yeah! Just, um…” she trails off and glances around, not looking at any of them. “You guys are fighting!” She blurts it out so suddenly that it catches them all off guard.

“I–I guess we are,” Yamaguchi says first, breaking through the tiny silence that befell them. “Sorry, we shouldn’t have started shouting, Yachi-san.”

Yachi takes a step back, waving her hands frantically in front of her and shaking her head from side to side. “No! No, you don’t have to apologize—!”

Yamaguchi blushes even as he smiles, but it wavers like he’s nervous. “It’s okay! We didn’t mean to worry you!”

“Sorry,” Kei mumbles, if only to take the attention off of Yamaguchi so he can be a pining fool in peace. Kageyama and Shouyou follow suit, mumbling their apologies at the same time. That seems to irk the king, though, and he turns his head to send a harsh glare toward Shouyou. He’s ignored.

“It’s fine! Really!” Yachi says, still shaking her head. “I just wanted to make sure you’re all okay!”

“Thanks for worrying about us, Yachi-san!” Shouyou says, smiling brightly. Yachi blushes furiously and stammers a few half-formed words that she can’t fully get out. She gives up after a moment and fizzles out. Kei can almost see smoke rising from her head.

“We’re done anyway,” Kageyama says, and while there’s still remnants of a growl in his voice he’s noticeably less angry. Kei supposes he should thank Yachi for being able to somehow calm down his teammates with her utter inability to be calm.

Kageyama pushes past Kei and storms down the hall toward the arena entrance without looking back. Yachi squeaks and raises her arm out in front of her, like she intends to grab at him from so far away. Kei just rolls his eyes.

“That’s the egocentric king for you,” he says with a snort, and Shouyou glares at him.

“It’s your fault, you know,” he says.

“How is it _my_ fault?” Kei asks, raising an unamused eyebrow. “He started this.”

“You know exactly how!” Shouyou says, emphasizing his words with a stomp of his foot. “Don’t act dumb.”

“Who says I’m acting?”

“You! You’re so—!” Shouyou breaks off and shouts wordlessly, knowing he can’t say anything without compromising their big secret. Yachi is already looking between them, her eyes teary and her mouth quivering as if she expects another fight to break out.

“That’s enough.” And then suddenly Tanaka is there behind them both, clapping down on their shoulders with a silent warning not to upset their precious manager. “We’re heading back to the school, anyway, so stop fighting.”

“Sorry, Tanaka-senpai!” Shouyou says, whirling around to face him. Tanaka looks confused, but not upset, by the honorific, and despite himself his chest puffs out proudly. “We’re going now anyway!”

Shouyou grabs Kei’s hand and drags him along behind him before Kei can even protest, and Yamaguchi chuckles and follows after, ignoring Kei’s pleading looks.

The bus is full of the second and third years (and Kageyama) when they arrive, but Kei still only has to look around for a second before he spots two open seats next to each other. One of the perks of having a small team, he supposes. He takes the lead this time, pulling Shouyou after him, but when he passes Kageyama’s seat he falters.

Kageyama is glaring at him mercilessly, beckoning him with his eyes to sit in the empty seat beside him. It’s more of a demand than a request, the kind that shouts threats at him and insists he has no other choice than to comply. Kei _really_ doesn’t want to know what Kageyama will do to him if he doesn’t sit by him.

And yet, he refuses to give in. Because Shouyou may be the king’s friend, but he sure as hell is _not_. And anyway, Shouyou is his own independent person. He doesn’t need to follow Kageyama’s orders anyway.

With that logic solidly under his belt, he meets Kageyama’s gaze evenly and then walks right past him down the aisle to the empty seats in the back, pulling Shouyou along behind him. Kageyama gawks openly, taken aback and hurt that he would even _dare_ to ignore him, especially in favor of someone he hates.

Even Shouyou is astounded that Kei would ignore Kageyama. “What are you doing?” he whispers under his breath, leaning in closely enough that no one else can hear their conversation as they sit down.

“What?” Kei asks, feigning innocence. He inspects his nails briefly, ignoring the various stares that he’s receiving from around the bus.

“You didn’t sit with Kageyama!” Shouyou says, his whisper almost breaking in his urgency.

Kei raises his eyebrow and crosses his arms. “Is it a rule that I have to sit next to the king?”

Shouyou falters. “W–well, no, but—but I _always_ sit with Kageyama! He’s my best friend!”

“He’s not _my_ best friend,” Kei points out, and Shouyou slumps forward. _“You_ go sit with him if you care so much about his feelings.”

“I can’t!” Shouyou shoots back, his pout turning into a glare. “He doesn’t like me right now since he thinks I’m _you!”_

Ah, right. How unfortunate for him. “Whatever.”

Shouyou falls back into his seat with a groan, but Kei doesn’t pay attention to that. Instead he watches as Yamaguchi sits down next to Kageyama, an easygoing smile on his face and a wrinkle in his forehead. He’s probably doing damage control. Kei will have to thank him for that later, since he’s always the one dealing with the consequences of Kei’s rotten personality.

“You’re horrible.”

Kei gasps sarcastically. “I thought I was your friend.”

“You are!” Shouyou says a little too quickly, a little too reassuringly. “But you’re still horrible.”

“I guess that sentiment is common among my friends,” Kei says, still watching Yamaguchi as he waves his arms around, seemingly in deep conversation with the king. He doesn’t know how he’s able to talk to easily with such insufferable people, but that’s how he and Kei have stayed friends this whole time. It’s a natural gift.

“I don’t know what ‘sentiment’ means, but you’re still horrible,” Shouyou says. “You should be nicer to Kageyama.”

“Why should I?” He sounds like a kid, but he can’t help it right now.

“Because you guys should get along!” Shouyou says, and there’s a pleading aspect to his tone that Kei can’t ignore. “I want to be friends with all of you, but you’re so stubborn it’s impossible!”

“He’s not any nicer to me,” he says as a last ditch effort to save face.

“Maybe if you actually made an _effort_ to be nicer to him, it wouldn’t be so bad,” Shouyou says, and it sounds like he’s _scolding_ him and that’s so embarrassing Kei wants to die.

“It doesn’t matter right now anyway,” Kei grumbles. “Even if I tried being nicer to him, he’d just think I’m you and it wouldn’t change anything.”

“Oh, right.” Shouyou thinks for a second. “Then I’ll be nicer to him!”

Kei grimaces. “You’re already a ray of sunshine. I don’t think it’s possible to be _nicer.”_

“Aw, you’re being nice again!” he says, grabbing at Kei’s arm and squeezing it to his chest. “You’re not half bad when you’re being friendly.”

“I’m not nice,” Kei insists weakly. “Shut up.”

Shouyou just giggles. “Speaking of which, have you turned my sister into one of your boring home improvement show-watching minions yet? You better not have!”

Kei ruffles his brow in confusion, then catches up to speed. “No, she’s fine. She’s still as obnoxious as you are. Just as loud, too.”

“My sister isn’t obnoxious!” Shouyou protests indignantly. He pauses. “Well, maybe she’s a _little_ obnoxious.”

Kei snorts.

“But I don’t believe you,” he continues. “There’s no way you haven’t corrupted her pure soul with your awful personality yet.”

“Why don’t you come see for yourself?” Kei offers, not even giving it a second thought. They’ve had so many sleepovers so far, but none of them have been at Shouyou’s house. Kei is sure that Shouyou is missing his family by now.

Shouyou sits up ramrod straight, his face turning red with emotion. “Really? I can come over?”

He says it so softly, so hesitantly, and he looks like he’s about to cry, his feelings boiling over. Kei isn’t sure when he got it into his head that he wasn’t _allowed_ to come see his own family, and he wonders how long Shouyou’s been holding that back. He feels bad for not offering it sooner.

“Of course,” he says. “It’s your house, after all.”

Shouyou positively radiates joy. “Thank you, Ke—Hinata!” he nearly shouts, pulling the rest of him into a crippling hug. Asahi twists around in his seat in front of them and gives them a weird look, but he doesn’t say anything about it.

“Sorry, we’ll keep it down,” Kei apologizes, lifting his hand as best he can whilst still being crushed against Shouyou’s chest. Asahi smiles awkwardly and turns back around.

“I’m so excited!” And of course Shouyou doesn’t even acknowledge that he might be causing some kind of disruption. “Can I come over tonight? Should I pack a bag? All my clothes are too small for me now, so we should definitely stop at home to pick up some clothes and, oh, it’s so far away but we only have one bike, so—”

“Knock it off,” Kei says, cutting in before Shouyou can slip up and let everything spill to their entire team.

Shouyou puckers his face up but doesn’t say anything more about the sleepover. Kei thinks it’s a godsend that somehow, some way, the gravity of letting loose their secret seems to have sunk in for him.

(He’ll probably forget it by tomorrow, but at least Kei can have moment of peace this right now.)

Shouyou is already bouncing around by the time they get off the bus back at Karasuno High School, eagerly awaiting their promised sleepover. Kei ignores the angry glares that Kageyama sends over his head and toward Shouyou, but none of them say anything more to each other as they head off in their separate ways.

Yamaguchi joins Kei and Shouyou on their walk to Kei’s house.

“You guys caused a lot of trouble back there,” Yamaguchi sighs, hunching over and dragging his feet. “I could barely get Kageyama to calm down.”

“Maybe he should learn some anger management,” Kei says.

“Maybe you should learn how to be nicer,” Shouyou shoots back without missing a beat.

“I didn’t even _do_ anything this time around,” he says, holding his hands up defensively. “And neither did you. He just came at you out of nowhere.”

Shouyou huffs and looks away. “I’m serious.”

Kei breathes out stiffly through his nose. “If I’m nicer to him, will you stop being mad at me?” He doesn’t mean for it to come out so _whiny_ , but it does and now he has to deal with the curious glances both Yamaguchi and Shouyou send his way. He fights the flush that creeps up his neck, but he loses spectacularly.

“Are you really considering being nicer to Kageyama, Tsukki?” Yamaguchi asks, his eyes wide and incredulous. He blinks.

“No.” Kei snorts, but it’s half-hearted. “But… I don’t want you to be mad at me, Sh–Shouyou.” The last part comes out almost as a whisper, and he almost wishes Shouyou doesn’t hear it.

But he’s being gathered into another hug before he even realizes it. “You called me Shouyou!” he gushes, crushing Kei’s bones and covering his face well enough that he can’t breathe.

“Let—let go!” he wheezes, and Shouyou drops him instantly, then catches him just before he can fall to the ground in his stupor.

“Sorry! But I was so happy you called me Shouyou!” He grins from ear to ear, and Kei has to look away from the sunny expression before it blinds him.

“It’s not that big a deal…” Kei mumbles.

Yamaguchi snickers. “You still don’t call me by my given name, Tsukki. And we’ve known each other for almost six years.”

“That’s because you’re Yamaguchi!” Kei argues.

“Hinata would call me Tadashi, right?” Yamaguchi smirks.

“You bet!” Shouyou exclaims, stopping in his tracks and whirling around to face them both. He points a finger at Yamaguchi. “Because you’re my friend!”

“See?” Yamaguchi says. “We’re _friends.”_

“Maybe my nickname for you _is_ Yamaguchi,” Kei grumbles, rubbing at his temples.

“That doesn’t even make any sense,” Shouyou points out. “Nicknames are supposed to be cute! Or like, a given name. You know, something that lets you know you’re close!”

Kei growls and Yamaguchi bumps his side gently. “I’m just messing with you, Tsukki,” he says, smiling down at him. “It’s not like I don’t know that we’re friends.”

When Kei looks up he sees a lighthearted humor in Yamaguchi’s eyes and a tiny, twitching grin on his face, like he’s making fun of him. He can’t figure out what that’s supposed to mean, though, so he doesn’t say anything.

They part ways at the intersection that leads to Yamaguchi’s house, and Shouyou and Kei head off in the opposite direction. Kei drags Shouyou’s bike beside him, listening intently to the tune Shouyou’s humming while he tries to figure out what Yamaguchi could have meant with that expression. When he comes up short, he decides to ignore it instead and focus on the task at hand, which is getting home.

But Shouyou doesn’t have a bike to ride, and so they have to walk. What is usually a forty-five minute bike ride turns into almost two hours, made even longer by the stop they make at Kei’s house to grab a change of clothes and a toothbrush. And yet when they arrive, Shouyou is nearly vibrating with anticipation and energy, eagerly awaiting the sleepover.

“We’re here!” Shouyou announces, running up ahead of him. His bag bounces around behind him, flopping wildly with each movement. “We’re really here!”

“Keep it down, or mom will hear you,” Kei hisses. “Don’t you want to make a good impression on her?”

Shouyou snaps to attention, his arms at his side and his back straight. “Oh, right!”

“She’s not going to recognize you, so don’t get all depressed over it,” Kei mumbles. “She’ll also probably think you’re a bad influence on me.”

“What do you mean?” Shouyou asks, spinning around to face him. It takes longer for his eyes to tear off of his house, but they meet Kei’s after a moment. “What kind of bad influence?”

“Something you told her in the past has convinced her that I’m a bully or something,” Kei says as casually as he can muster. “I can’t _possibly_ imagine why, though.” He snorts.

“Maybe it’s because you have all the qualities of a bully,” Shouyou responds thoughtfully, tapping his finger against his chin. He says it sarcastically, without any bite to it, but Kei can’t help but think it’s true.

“Then I guess you’ll have to prove to her that you’re not a big bad bully trying to beat up her son,” Kei says, looking away. He’s never even been violent with Shouyou—that’s the king’s job—so he doesn’t even know why he phrases it that way.

“I’m sure she’ll change her mind as soon as she meets me.” Shouyou nods, determined to make a good impression on her. “I’m good at making friends after all!”

“She’s your mom,” Kei points out.

“But she doesn’t know that!”

“Right, right,” Kei says, nodding along. “So you’re going to make friends with your own mom, who doesn’t _know_ she’s your mom, because you want to persuade her that your school bully, who was never actually a bully, isn’t a bully and also isn’t even you.”

Shouyou stares at him unblinkingly, and then stares some more. “I have no idea what you just said but yes.”

Kei tries to fight it down, but the snorts of laughter bubble out before he can stop it. He laughs so hard that his eyes are forced closed, and he reaches out to Shouyou for balance as he starts to wobble.

“It’s not funny!” Shouyou yells. “You’re confusing!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he says, wiping a tear from his eye. “I didn’t mean it, anyway.”

Shouyou grubles something under his breath. “Whatever. I wanna go inside. It’s getting late, anyway.”

“Oh, right.”

He unlocks the front door and feels far too exposed under Shouyou’s watchful gaze. He wonders if he should offer to let Shouyou open the door instead, since it _is_ his house and right now he feels far too much like a home invader than anything.

But he doesn’t say anything and lets the door swing open into the noisy Hinata household, voices assaulting him as soon as he steps through the threshold.

“Shouyou!” his mom calls from the living room. “What took you so long?”

“I brought a friend home, but he doesn’t have a bike,” Kei explains. His mom pops out into the hallway and smiles warmly.

Shouyou freezes beside him. His eyes go wide and he works his mouth over and over, but no words come out. He doesn’t even look like he’s breathing. Kei elbows him in the side, and Shouyou responds by bowing deeply. “Par–pardon the intrusion!” he shouts, way too loudly and way too emotionally. Kei’s pretty sure that he’s holding back tears.

“It’s no trouble at all!” his mom says, stepping more fully into the hall. “We haven’t even had dinner yet. Would you like to join us?”

Shouyou lifts from his stiff bow. His shoulders are tense, but his smile is genuine. “Yeah, I would.”

His mom eyes Shouyou curiously. “What’s your name?”

Shouyou’s mouth falls open but no words come out yet again, so Kei grabs his wrist to stop him and says, “This is Tsukishima Kei. He’s on my volleyball team.”

Her stance hardens. “Tsukishima-kun.”

“We’ve been hanging out a lot recently,” Kei elaborates before his mom gets too overprotective. “We’re really good friends now.”

For a moment, she stares hard at Shouyou, not believing a single word of it. But then she relaxes and sighs audibly. “Right, yeah. It’s good to meet you, Tsukishima-kun. I hope Shouyou isn’t giving you too much trouble.”

Shouyou shakes his head furiously. “None at all, m—um, Hinata-san!”

Her gaze softens and she looks more like herself, more like every other member of this family of Shouyou clones. “That’s good to hear. Dinner will be ready in a couple of minutes, so go get yourselves cleaned up.”

“Right,” they intone in unison and then scramble off upstairs. Shouyou lingers at the base of the stairs for a moment, but Kei pushes him to keep him moving.

“We’re coming right back down, dumbass,” he hisses, and that seems to sway him well enough, even if Kei has to pull on his arm to keep him walking up the steps and down the hall and into his room.

“I missed her,” is the first thing Shouyou says when the door is closed behind them, and Kei can hear the break in his voice and he feels really, really bad for not offering a sleepover sooner.

“Then put your stuff down and we can go talk to her,” Kei says, setting his own bag down and turning around to leave without giving his room a second glance. He falters when he sees Shouyou looking around in wonder, his glassy eyes darting every which way and his hands gripping at his pants legs.

“You kept everything the same,” he says, and it comes out as a whisper.

“It’s still your room, after all,” Kei sighs, tilting his head to the side. “You kept my room the same, too.”

“It’s my room,” Shouyou repeats, as if testing the words on his tongue. “I haven’t been here in so long.”

“It’s only been a week or so,” Kei retorts, but he regrets it when Shouyou winces.

“I know that!” Shouyou pouts, but the expression looks a lot more serious than he has been since they swapped bodies. “I just… I’ve never been away from home for so long. Not by myself, at least.”

Kei snorts, hoping that it might bring some levity to the conversation. “Did you forget what it looked like?”

“No! You’re such a jerk, Kei.” Shouyou crosses his arms and harrumphs loudly, but somehow Kei’s efforts paid off and he seems much less upset now. He’ll take that as a win.

“Do you want to stay up here and ogle your volleyball collection or go back down and visit with your family?” Kei raises an eyebrow expectantly, and though Shouyou looks conflicted, he shakes his head and slaps his cheeks and suddenly he’s a-okay, apparently.

“Okay! Let’s go!” he demands, pulling the door open himself. “I know they don’t know who I am anymore, but I’m still excited to see them, you know?”

Kei does know. They’re in the same situation, after all. It’s the same feeling he had when he saw his own mom for the first time, the morning after they switched bodies. Somehow, though, Shouyou seems to be dealing with it all so much better than Kei ever could. He wonders if it’s a matter of the differences in their mental fortitude, or if Shouyou is just much better at hiding his true feelings than he lets on.

(Kei would bet on the former.)

“You just have to make sure they don’t beat you up,” Kei says with a smirk.

“Why would they do that?” Shouyou squawks, his cheeks puffing out as he leans down far too close to Kei’s face.

“You pretty much described me as a bully before,” Kei says. “They probably think you beat me up for lunch money every day at school.”

Shouyou’s face wrinkles up as he thinks. “But I’ve never said you got violent or anything. I just complain about you sometimes.”

“Uh-huh,” Kei says, unenthusiastic enough that even Shouyou catches on to his bad mood. “Well, now’s your chance to convince them that you’re—or me, I guess—a model citizen.”

The flames of determination are in his eyes when Shouyou pulls away and clenches his fist in the air in front of him. “All right! I won’t lose!”

“You’re not even competing against anyone,” he says blandly. Shouyou ignores him.

The living room is full when they get downstairs, and tonight, it seems, dinner is being held under the kotatsu in front of the television. There are bowls of meat and rice on the table with a few empty bowls and plates set out around them. The other Hinatas are already sitting down, but they’ve clearly been waiting for them before they dig in.

“Shouyou!” Natsu shouts excitedly, and Kei can feel the way the _real_ Shouyou stiffens beside him. “The season finale of Magical Kokona is on tonight! Are you gonna watch it with us? Huh? Are you?”

“Yeah, of course.” And Kei smiles, and he can see Shouyou smile out of the corner of his eye, and he thinks that this is what Shouyou deserves. A little familiarity after spending so long away from home.

They take their places and bless the food and start piling rice and beef onto their plates and it’s loud and noisy and Shouyou slips right into the setting like he never even left. Kei thinks he should be annoyed with the way they’re all talking over each other, to the extent that he can’t even follow a single conversation, but he’s not. Maybe it’s because he and Shouyou are friends now, or maybe it’s because he’s already spent a week in this environment, with the too-loud family who loves more than anything to talk and laugh and have fun.

Either way, he can’t help the nervous, inexplicable flutter in his heart when Shouyou turns to him halfway through dinner, eyes shining as bright as his smile, and he says, “Thank you,” in the softest and most sincere tone he’s ever heard come from either Shouyou’s mouth _or_ Kei’s own.

“You’re—you’re welcome,” Kei stammers, not sure how to make heads or tails of it. “Where did that even come from?”

“For—uh, for inviting me over!” Shouyou says, realizing quite suddenly that they’re in the middle of dinner and everyone can hear them talking. “I’m glad I got to meet your family.”

His mother is still a little suspicious and she watches Shouyou a little too closely, but his father laughs jovially, reaching over the kotatsu with a large, beefy hand and resting it on Shouyou’s shoulder. “We’re happy to have you over, Tsukishima-kun. It’s been nice getting to know you.”

Shouyou’s face splits into a grin. “It was nice meeting you too!”

His dad’s eyes crinkle with humor. “Shouyou, you should bring this boy over more often. I like him.”

His mom stares a little too long, a little too hard, at her husband but gives in with a shake of her head. “I agree. We’d love to have you over whenever you want. I’m just glad that Shouyou’s making friends.”

Kei is struck by how well Shouyou managed to keep his promise. Even his mother, who had been the most resistant, broke down completely in his presence. Kei knows he would never have been able to change her mind about him on his own. Maybe he should thank Shouyou later, too, for doing what he could never.

“You two should go on upstairs and play,” his mom insists as the food dwindles and everyone’s slowing down. “We can take care of the mess down here.”

“Right, thanks mom,” Kei says, standing up a little too quickly. Shouyou’s much slower to follow, and even after he stands he doesn’t take his eyes off of his mother. She just smiles and turns away, though, apparently not minding the gaze that follows her intensely.

“Natsu, would you help us clean up?” his father asks sweetly.

Natsu still groans loudly, making a scene. “But I helped set the table!” she complains.

His father chuckles, somehow patient even in the face of absolute resistance. “And your mother made dinner, but she’s not complaining.”

Natsu can’t argue with that, so she gathers a few plates in her arms and hands them off to her father and together they walk into the kitchen to clean them off.

“She’s still a pain,” Shouyou muses under his breath, but he sounds awestruck and too happy about it.

“It’s only been a week,” Kei says by way of a reminder. “They’re not going to change that much.”

“I know.” But he doesn’t sound quite so sure.

“Do you want to go back upstairs?” Kei asks, and he hopes it’s clear enough that he’s giving him the option to stay downstairs with his family.

But Shouyou nods his head. “Yeah, I’m fine now. You have to help me with my homework, anyway, since I have a test tomorrow.”

Kei blanches. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I forgot!” Shouyou laughs and grabs Kei’s wrist, dragging him along even as he protests.

When they’re in his room and the door is shut and they have enough privacy to talk freely amongst themselves, Shouyou kneels down and takes his homework out of his bag and Kei fishes his phone out of his pocket to check his email.

“The king emailed you,” he says, looking through the several messages that have piled up throughout the day. It’s almost a shock how much people talk to Shouyou, he thinks. He’s not used to checking, since his own phone rarely gets notifications. He feels almost bad for ghosting all of Shouyou’s friends.

“What did he say?” Shouyou asks, bounding over to peer over his shoulder. “Is he still mad?”

Kei opens the email and reads it out loud.

_From: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: hey_ _  
_ _why are you hanging out with tsukishima so much lately?_

Shouyou giggles. “Are you sure we shouldn’t tell Kageyama the truth? He’s really torn up about all this.”

“I don’t care how the king feels,” Kei says, and it comes out a little more harshly than he anticipated. He winces and draws in his irritation, forcing his voice to come out more softly. “I don’t want him to know.”

Shouyou sighs, but it’s more resigned than irritated. “Fine. But if we’re not telling him, then you better be nice to him at least!”

Kei doesn’t want to do that at all, but he’s not about to say it. Instead, he opens up a new email to reply. “What should I say back to him?”

“Um…” Shouyou pauses as he thinks. “Just say we’ve been getting along better lately?”

Kei types up the message word for word and sends it, wanting to put it out of his mind. He’d much rather focus on studying for Shouyou’s test tomorrow, since that has a more immediate impact on Kei’s future. And if Shouyou fails one of _Kei’s_ tests, his academic life will be over. He can’t allow that.

But his phone buzzes again and he glares at the white screen. They’re not getting much studying done tonight; he can feel it already.

_From: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: hey_ _  
_ _i don’t trust him_

“I mean, that’s fair,” Shouyou points out, reading the message over. Kei groans.

_To kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: Re: hey_ _  
_ _he’s not going to eat me or anything. we’re just friends_

“Why do you have those weird kaomojis next to everyone’s contact information?”

“Shut up!” Shouyou yelps, smacking Kei’s chest weakly. “They’re cute!”

Kei can’t argue with that, but it still doesn’t make much sense. He concludes that, in some way, Shouyou is just a cute person who likes cute things. It’s kind of endearing.

_From: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: hey_ _  
_ _be careful around him. he might be planning something bad, and you’re just too stupid to notice it_

Kei stifles a condescending snort. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks. “I don’t think any of my _nefarious plans_ could be worse than a literal, actual, real-life body swap. The universe has me beat on this one.”

“You’re right,” Shouyou agrees, nodding along. “Just tell him that you have everything under control. He probably won’t believe you, since he thinks you’re _me_ and he doesn’t trust anything I say anyway, but it’ll get him to shut up at least.”

Kei types out the message and sends it, tossing his phone onto the bed and away from them for good measure. He has no intention of responding tonight, anyway. “He’s not going to get any better about this.”

“You’re the one who refuses to tell him anything,” Shouyou says. “This is your fault.”

“I’d rather him stay as far out of our business as possible,” Kei counters. “If that means playing buddy-buddy with him so he doesn’t suspect a thing, then so be it.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense. You still have to be nice to him either way!” Shouyou’s face is wrinkled and funny looking, and Kei cracks a grin in spite of himself. “What? What are you laughing at?”

He hurriedly schools his face. “Nothing.”

“Jerk.”

“Shrimp.”

“You can’t call me that anymore,” Shouyou whines. “I’m taller than you!”

Kei raises his eyebrow. “We have to switch back as soon as possible, then.”

“I’d rather stay like this if you’re just gonna tease me when we’re back to normal,” Shouyou says, turning up his nose at him.

“Did you say earlier you wanted to switch back as soon as possible?”

“Don’t use my words against me!” Shouyou shouts, leaning over and grabbing at Kei. Kei throws his arms up in defense, and they end up on the floor, wrestling around the mess in Shouyou’s room.

“Get off of me!” Kei yells, shoving at him. Shouyou’s too heavy to move on his own, but somehow he comes to his senses long enough to climb off of Kei on his own. “You’re obnoxious.”

“And you’re a jerk.”

“You’ve already used that insult against me,” Kei says. “Try something new.”

Shouyou frowns and bites at his lip, deep in thought. “Then, um… you’re a butthead!” He looks proud with his newfound insult.

Kei barks out something between a scoff and a laugh. “Good enough.”

“Do you think we’d still be friends?”

The question is so sudden that Kei doesn’t know what to do with it. He turns it over and over in his head, trying to figure out what it means. He gives up when he only finds more questions. “What do you mean by that? Of course we’ll still be friends when we get back to normal.”

“No, I mean, do you think we’d still be friends if we never switched places?” Shouyou asks, and he’s suddenly very serious and very quiet.

“Um…” He trails off, not knowing how to answer him. He runs through possibilities in his mind and then expels his thoughts with a sigh. “Probably not,” he answers honestly.

“I figured,” Shouyou says, and he sounds disappointed, in a way. “If you could, would you turn back time? You know, to prevent this whole thing from happening?”

“No.” This time, he doesn’t have to think about his answer at all. “I hate this dumb body swap, but I don’t regret it, I guess.”

Shouyou quirks up a smile. “You’ve gotten a lot nicer recently.”

“I have not,” Kei insists, crossing his arms and looking away.

“Have too!” Shouyou sing-songs, poking Kei in the side.

“So what if I have?” He has to turn away even more to hide the flush that threatens to creep up on him.

“It means you’re changing,” he says. “You’re becoming less of a jerk.”

“You’re just delusional,” Kei says, but his nose wrinkles up.

“Am not!” Shouyou counters.

He smirks. “Are too.”

“Am not!”

“I’m not doing that with you.”

“Argh!” Shouyou shouts, throwing his head back. “You’re so annoying!”

“Thus disproving your theory,” he condescends in a bland voice.

Shouyou huffs. “Whatever.”

There’s a knock on the door then, drawing both of their attention. Kei stands and brushes himself off, straightening out his shirt so no one knows about their little wrestling match, and then slides open the door to reveal Natsu staring up at him.

Kei blinks down his nose at her. “Can I help you?”

She nods like a little orange-haired bobblehead toy, and she looks past him eagerly so she can see Shouyou. He makes his way to the door, too, and smiles brightly, crouching down to meet her eye to eye.

“Hey there, Nacchan,” he says, ruffling her hair. She erupts into a fit of giggles. “What are you doing up here?”

“Come watch Magical Kokona with me!” she says directly to Shouyou. Kei looks between them, wondering what has her so captivated with him until he realizes that she’s probably figured it out, just like she figured out Kei isn’t her real brother.

He bites down on his lip.

“I’d love to!” Shouyou gushes, already pushing himself up and letting her take his hand. Kei doesn’t even have time to think about his own response before Shouyou grabs his hand, too.

“H–hey!” Kei calls, stumbling forward as Shouyou pulls him along behind. He’s ignored, however, and they form a three-person train as they head toward the living room.

“Mom is getting us snacks!” Natsu announces as soon as they reach the landing, and then she’s darting ahead toward the kotatsu, probably to get the best seat for watching TV.

Shouyou follows after without being prompted, already striking up a conversation about the characters and plot that Kei can’t even begin to follow. He looks so happy, so enthralled with everything Natsu says, that Kei can’t bring himself to interrupt them.

He laments the test that Shouyou won’t have time to study for and the homework that will almost certainly be left undone. But when he looks at the way Shouyou’s face lights up, grinning from ear to ear as he listens to Natsu talk about the anime, Kei thinks he can let it slide just this once.


	10. step 10. searching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (By now he has learned the lines that dance on Shouyou’s face, has found the tiny flecks of gold that swim in his eyes, has come to enjoy the softness of his orange hair.)

Two-on-two matches, Kei has learned, are difficult, especially when he’s one hundred sixty-two centimeters tall and his only partner still doesn’t know how to receive.

“One touch!” Kei calls, sparing a cursory glance behind him to where Shouyou is already rushing forward to meet the ball Kei had just barely managed to slow down.

“Chance ball!” Shouyou cries. Miraculously, the ball hits his outstretched arms and flies up, and Kei is able to set it well enough back to him. Shouyou spikes the ball back over the net with an ear-splitting cry of determination. Yamaguchi scrambles to receive it, but it’s too fast and the ball hits the floor before anyone can catch it.

“Nice kill!” Kei calls, even if it lacks enthusiasm.

“Yeah!” Shouyou shouts, bounding up toward Kei with all the energy of a puppy. Kei can’t help the smile that forms on his own face, and it only grows wider when he sees Kageyama sending them both That Look once again. It happens whenever Shouyou shows too much emotion, cares too much, does _anything_ that Kei himself wouldn’t do in a million years.

Kei has learned to ignore it. It doesn’t bother him nearly as much as it used to.

There’s a lot of things that don’t bother him as much as they used to.

Like the way Shouyou hangs on him constantly, chattering away in his ear whenever they can find some time alone. Or the fact that they _have_ so much time alone, sometimes with Yamaguchi and oftentimes without, whether they’re spending time at each other’s houses or eating lunch together or staying behind a few seconds longer in the club room after the rest of the team has already changed their clothes and headed off to the court. Or the casual touching, to the extent that it feels weird when Shouyou _isn’t_ grabbing onto him in some way. Or the way that smiles seem to come more easily to his face, and he’s not entirely sure when that began to change.

The body swap thing is still weird and inconvenient, but he doesn’t care much anymore. He’s gotten used to it, even if the first thing he does every morning is check if he’s still in Shouyou’s room, even if he stares too long in the mirror at a face that isn’t _his_ and wonders if maybe he’s just dreaming.

(By now he has learned the lines that dance on Shouyou’s face, has found the tiny flecks of gold that swim in his eyes, has come to enjoy the softness of his orange hair.)

Yamaguchi’s jump floater serve drops down in front of Kei before he can receive it, and it earns a huff from him and a loud groan from Shouyou. But Yamaguchi positively beams, his face lighting up with surprised elation like he does every time he manages a successful service ace.

“Nice serve,” Kageyama says to him, staying in his defensive position as if he expects Kei and Shouyou to pick up Yamaguchi’s next serve, even with their obvious lack of coordination.

These after-practice practice games started with just Kei, Shouyou, and Yamaguchi, the three of them running drills occasionally with the help of Yachi, when she was willing to stay late. But at some point over the last couple of weeks, Kageyama had wormed his way into the picture.

The reasoning is that Kageyama and Shouyou are partners, and any practice that includes Shouyou (or rather, Kei) had better include him, too.

Sure, it helps that Kei’s getting more practice with those stupidly fast quicks, even if he’s not quite _there_ yet, but it’s still _Kageyama_. And since Kageyama still doesn’t know anything, they can’t move or talk freely.

Kei thinks he should be more irritated with the king’s presence, all things considered, but Kageyama’s frustrations directed at Shouyou and not him, it’s become a little easier to get along with him.

Kei receives Yamaguchi’s serve this time, and though it’s wobbly, it goes up, and that’s what matters. Shouyou connects the ball, tossing it back to him recklessly because he knows Kei will be there to spike it.

It’s weird playing with someone who trusts him one hundred percent, someone who can’t even fathom the idea of not putting his all into every rally, but it’s somehow rewarding. They’re able to pull off ridiculously aggressive plays, even if they miss half of the points they set up. It’s Shouyou’s way of training Kei, of pushing him harder and forcing him to run faster, to make use of every last reserve of stamina that Shouyou has dutifully built up his whole life.

And it’s working.

Kei spikes the ball, but Kageyama receives it with little difficulty. It flies back over the net, and Kei catches it with a cry of “chance ball!”

And so it goes. Kei passes the ball to Shouyou and Shouyou tries to set a quick, pressuring Kei to run faster, jump higher.

It’s not that they work well together or anything, but Shouyou’s so intense when he plays that Kei can’t help but succumb to that pressure. There’s no way to give up when those eyes are following his every move, and somehow it seems to work.

The ball lands on the other side of the court without anyone touching it, and Kei smirks at Yamaguchi’s and Kageyama’s frustrated expressions.

“Nice kill, Hinata!” Shouyou shouts, patting him on the back just a little too hard. 

“Nice kill,” Kageyama says, though it’s much quieter. It sounds angry, which makes sense because the king hates to lose. He makes his way to the center of the court and grabs at the net, leaning in and piercing Kei with his glare. “When are you going to practice our quicks again?”

“We can do it tomorrow,” Kei says, and even the thrum of anxiety that rushes under his skin can’t drown out the confidence he feels. ”I want to finish this two-on-two.”

Playing with Shouyou and only Shouyou is like a roller coaster, fast and unpredictable and filled with so many ups and downs that he can’t possibly keep track of it. But Shouyou is _good_ at what he does, and that makes up for any of the dizziness that Kei feels as he runs around the court, trying to keep up with him.

He almost doesn’t notice when they (just barely) score the winning point of their practice match. He’s still running plays and probabilities in his head when Shouyou lets out a loud victory cry, running straight into Kei and hugging him tightly. He can’t breathe for all of ten seconds, but when Shouyou finally lets him go, he finds himself unable to hide his smile.

It’s late afternoon, only about an hour after practice let out. But even now the sun is setting and casting a golden glow through the windows of the gym, only to be scattered by the fluorescent overhead lights that shine too brightly down upon them.

Kei is heaving, hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath. He’s not used to this level of activity, but he made a promise, and it’s something he wants to keep. So he pushes himself and fights his apathy with obligation, and he can feel himself getting better.

He doesn’t know if he can confidently spike one of Kageyama’s minus tempo quicks, but he’s learning how to trust him.

“You’re getting better,” Shouyou says, and his breathing is just as ragged as Kei’s. He almost feels guilty, because he knows that if Shouyou were still in his own body, he’d have the stamina to endure this whole practice. But Kei’s body isn’t strong enough, hasn’t been through enough to deal with all this activity. He’s always been too busy skimping out and cutting corners to build up that same reserve of energy that Shouyou has worked for his whole life.

“So are you,” Kei wheezes. Shouyou beams with pride as he slides his glasses gently onto his face, folding up the sports glasses he’d received from Akiteru and putting them in their case. Kei wonders when Akiteru had made the decision to get him those glasses, and he wonders if Shouyou’s boundless enthusiasm for volleyball had any sway in it.

“We have to clean up,” Yamaguchi calls as he finishes taking apart the net with Kageyama, folding it up carefully before making his way to the closet. He pulls out four brooms and hands them off to each of them before going to sweep the floor. Kei goes slowly, still trying to catch his breath, and Shouyou seems content to fall in line next to him. Kageyama, though, lags behind, and Kei can feel his eyes on their backs as he watches them.

“The king is curious again,” Kei whispers, his tone as flat and quiet as he can possibly make it.

“He’ll never figure it out,” Shouyou says, and he chuckles quietly into his hand.

“Figure what out?” And suddenly Kageyama is right behind him, glaring daggers into Shouyou’s skull. Shouyou yelps a little and instinctively backs away, but he assumes a defensive stance as if he intends to fight him right there.

It leaves Kei with the job of coming up with a lie that’ll appease the king, and he feels almost betrayed by Shouyou’s impulsivity. ”What? We didn’t say anything,” He shrugs, hoping that maybe Kageyama’s head is too stuffed with volleyballs to think more about what they could be talking about.

“You were definitely talking,” Kageyama says slowly, nodding to himself. ”Who were you talking about? Who won’t figure what out?”

Kei wrinkles up his face in some expression he thinks Shouyou might make. ”I don’t have to tell you anything.” It sounds petulant enough that it startles Kei with how much he actually sounds like Shouyou. ”Dummyama,” he adds as a final measure to see just how far he can go with his little act.

Yamaguchi chokes from across the court, laughing a little too much at Kei’s charade, but Kageyama cocks his head to the side and frowns deeply, his brow furrowed together.

“We were discussing what to do for Nishinoya-senpai for his birthday!” Shouyou announces, relaxing his stance and leaning in excitedly. Kei can see a sparkle of mischief in his eyes as he lies.

“You?” Kageyama sneers, looking Shouyou up and down.

“I can be nice if I want to be,” Shouyou pouts. ”I thought it would be fun to have a party for him after practice or something.”

Kageyama looks like he absolutely does not believe Shouyou in any way, shape, or form, but thankfully, he drops the subject and goes back to sweeping, walking faster to catch up with Yamaguchi and leaving them alone.

“That was close!” Shouyou says in a fake whisper, but he’s smiling big and carefree and open and he doesn’t look worried at all.

“If you keep talking, it’s going to happen again.”

“Oh! You’re right!” Shouyou mimics zipping his lips and smiles triumphantly. Kei breathes out a short chuckle before continuing down the path with the broom.

When they’ve finished sweeping and put away the balls and locked up the gym, they head out as a group, all of them talking loudly enough over each other that Kei can’t keep up with any one conversation. Of course, Shouyou heads most of them, and he seems to have no trouble talking about a million things at once. It’s just one of his many talents, Kei assumes.

“You haven’t wanted to practice our new quicks lately,” Kageyama says to him, staring down his nose with those intense eyes that don’t know how to tone it down.

Kei shrugs. ”I haven’t been playing my best recently.” Shouyou glances at him from out the corner of his eyes, but he doesn’t falter as he speaks to Yamaguchi.

“Not since the summer training camp.” Of course the king, of all people, would be keeping track of it. Kei stifles a scowl.

“Guess I got burnt out by all those uphill sprints.”

Kageyama shakes his head. ”You don’t get burnt out.”

That makes Kei _mad_ , because how dare Kageyama act like he knows him better than he does. He tries to rationalize that Kageyama’s actually talking about Shouyou, but it doesn’t help soothe his nerves because _how dare Kageyama act like he knows Shouyou better than he does_. Kageyama may be Shouyou’s partner, but Kei _is_ Shouyou, for all intents and purposes, unless they’re alone together. He’s even graduated to using his given name, while Kageyama still calls him Hinata.

So really, how dare.

“How would you know?” Kei snaps, summing up all of his frustrations in one quick, snippy question.

“I’ve been your partner long enough,” Kageyama responds coolly because he doesn’t sense the irritation behind Kei’s words. ”But the next round of the Spring Interhigh Preliminaries are next week, so we need to make sure you’re an effective weapon. We’re not playing our best without our decoy.”

“We’ll practice tomorrow, then,” Kei promises, already feeling his irritation die out. ”But our team is already pretty good.”

“Oh, yeah!” Shouyou cuts in, clapping one hand each on Kei’s and Kageyama’s shoulders. ”I forgot to mention that I started practicing with my brother on the weekends!”

“You _what?”_ Kei’s eyes bulge and he wonders just how much Shouyou has been keeping from him, intentionally or otherwise.

“Yeah, yeah!” Shouyou says, a wide grin pulling at his face. Kei’s face hardens into something more pressing, and the way Shouyou clears his throat and calms down immediately says that he’s taken the hint. ”He offered to let me practice with his team at his university, so I took him up on it. I’m playing with college students!”

“You’ve been doing a lot of things recently,” Kei mumbles under his breath, hoping that no one hears him. When Shouyou drapes his body over Kei though, he knows his wish hadn’t been granted.

“Do you wanna join us?” he asks, as if that’s what Kei was upset about.

(Really, upset isn’t the word he’d use to describe this feeling. It’s more like he’s surprised that Shouyou hasn’t been telling him everything that’s going on, and they _should_ be because they’re acting like each other and that’s just how it should go, probably. Swapping stories, keeping each other up to date, stuff like that.)

“Not particularly.” But the offer does sound appealing in some ways, because he’d probably get some really good practice in and he’d be able to see Akiteru more often, even if he’d have to pretend to be someone else.

“Hinata should be practicing with me,” Kageyama says, and he sounds truly angry. He even goes so far as to grab Kei’s wrist and pull him toward him, straight out from under Shouyou’s weight. Shouyou stumbles forward and yelps as he scrambles to catch himself, shooting a glare at Kageyama for doing something like that. ”He’s _my_ partner, after all.”

“It was just a suggestion,” Shouyou huffs, crossing his arms. Kei sees Yamaguchi patting his arm in some kind of hollow, comforting gesture. ”I thought it would be fun.”

“It wouldn’t be productive,” Kageyama argues. ”If Hinata can’t perform our quicks then there’s no point in him being on the court.”

“Hey!” Shouyou snaps, forgetting once again that he’s not in the right body for that kind of reaction. ”He has more weapons than just that quick, you know.”

It’s a decent save, but Kageyama looks unimpressed. ”Sure, but playing with _you_ isn’t going to help him.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” Shouyou says, leaning down so he can get in Kageyama’s face. Kei, too, is wondering the same thing, but he has no idea how to phrase his questions.

But Kageyama just scoffs. ”Why would he even want to play with someone like you?”

“Do you speak for him now?” Shouyou says, his voice dropping into something more threatening. With Kei’s voice, it sounds almost bone-chilling.

Kageyama glances down to where his hands are still tightly clasped around Kei’s wrist. ”No, but I do know that you’re nothing but trouble. I don’t know what game you’re trying to play here, but don’t think I’m going to fall for it.”

“Game?” Shouyou squeaks, frowning deeply. ”I’m not playing any games!”

Kageyama grunts, a noncommittal non-answer that Kei doesn’t understand. Shouyou seems to, though, and he ruffles up, balling his fists and puffing out his chest like he’s about to just deck Kageyama in the face right there. He’s only soothed by the way Yamaguchi puts his hand over Shouyou’s and gently pulls him back down, a calm, easy smile on his face.

Shouyou breathes out the last of his anger with a huff.

Something inside Kei stirs, and there’s a spike of irritation in his chest. No matter how hard he tries, his gaze keeps falling back on Yamaguchi’s hands, which are still resting on top of Shouyou’s.

“You’re still practicing with me,” Kageyama says, cutting straight through whatever weird, hazy thoughts are forming in Kei’s mind. He’s finally able to tear his eyes away and meet Kageyama’s, looking up at him.

“Sure,” he affirms with a quick nod. It’s not like he ever really had a choice in the matter, anyway.

“We’re going back to the school,” Yamaguchi says as they reach the front gates, and though Kageyama frowns and looks between the three in his midst, he doesn’t say anything about it. It’s no longer so out of the ordinary, anyway.

Kageyama breaks off from them at the school entrance and waves goodbye before heading off toward his home, leaving Yamaguchi, Shouyou, and Kei standing in a small cluster at the gates.

“Are we going again tonight?” Shouyou asks, leaning forward expectantly. Kei wonders why he’s so excited about something he’ll get bored of after only a few minutes.

Yamaguchi nods and together they turn back to the school and make their way toward the library. They’ve gone a few times in the past week at Yamaguchi’s suggestion, but even Kei is starting to tire of it.

“We probably won’t find anything again,” he says, ever the pessimist.

“You don’t know that,” Yamaguchi says. ”We’ve barely looked through any of the books there. And the internet has so much information we haven’t even started to search.”

“Don’t be such a downer!” Shouyou adds, swinging his arms at his side. ”We’ll definitely find a way to get back in our own bodies soon. I can feel it in my bones!”

“We’ve been like this for a month now,” Kei laments with a long-suffering sigh. ”Nothing we’ve tried has worked at all. So how can either of you be so sure we’ll find something?”

“If there was a way to switch your personalities,” Yamaguchi starts, “there’s a way to put you back. It’s as simple as that.”

Shouyou nods. ”We just have to find out what that way is.”

Kei knows they’re not going to find anything, especially not so soon, but he doesn’t argue with them anymore. Instead he follows them into the library obediently, praying that it’s empty or at least close to empty.

He sees a few students holed up at a table in the far corner, probably studying for exams late into the night. But other than them and the librarians, there seems to be no one around, which Kei is grateful for. It’ll give them the freedom they need to browse the library searching for the questionable subjects required for their research.

“I’ll look at the fiction novels!” Shouyou volunteers shamelessly, bouncing ahead into the nearest aisle before either Kei or Yamaguchi can complain about him taking the easy job for himself. Of course he’d stick them with the truly difficult position of finding _anything_ they can about real-life body swaps, whether it’s news clippings or memoires or a long-forgotten forum online.

But Kei doesn’t complain and neither does Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi’s reaction makes sense, at least, since he was the one to propose this research and so has honorably taken up the job of doing the most intense and grueling work among the three. It’s almost weird how dedicated he is to this, like he wants to find a solution even more than Kei or Shouyou does.

But that’s fine. Kei isn’t complaining. So he follows Yamaguchi to a nonfiction section to start flipping through texts and various articles and compilations of newspapers.

He knows they won’t find anything, but this is their only lead right now. After a month of being stuck in each other’s bodies, they may be used to it, but it doesn’t mean they _like_ the situation they’re in. Kei, for one, wants to get back to his own body as soon as possible. Preferably before the upcoming preliminary games. It’s why he agreed to do the research in the first place, because he’s quite frankly sick of this.

He wouldn’t exactly go back and change anything, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want the future to be different.

Yamaguchi is restless beside him as he flips through books, taking them out momentarily only to replace them a few minutes later with a long, drawn out sight. He can’t find anything either. Kei knew he wouldn’t.

There’s no such thing as body swaps, or rather there _shouldn’t_ be. Those kinds of things exist only in fiction novels or on television, and Kei is sure that Shouyou has racked up a good number of potential novels and manga for them to read by now. It doesn’t mean they’ll find anything useful in those books, but it’ll give them ideas to try out later.

This is how they’ve worked all week, since Yamaguchi first suggested it. They finish practice and have their after-practice practice, then go to the library immediately (after sending Kageyama off under the pretense of working on some project together), and start searching.

They’ve found a few novels so far, one after the other piling up uselessly, but there’s nothing really to go on. Lots of the suggestions are things they’ve already tried, like simply going to sleep only to wake up the next morning in their own bodies. Obviously that kind of thing hasn’t worked, even if Kei secretly hopes it will one of these days.

But there’s been nothing conducive so far, nothing helpful to their search. Shouyou pulls book after book, and when Kei is the one searching through fiction, he pulls book after book, but nothing ever amounts to anything.

With a long, loud sigh, Kei turns to Yamaguchi and slides the book he’s been skimming back into the place he got it from. ”We’re not going to find anything in this section. Let’s go see what Shouyou found.”

“You’ve really taken a liking to him, haven’t you?” Yamaguchi teases, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiles. ”You even call him Shouyou now.”

“You do, too,” Kei counters, and Yamaguchi shrugs.

“You’re getting along with him better, too.”

“He’s my friend.” The word sits weird on his tongue, and Kei thinks it’s because he hasn’t used it much, especially in relation to Shouyou.

“Mhm,” Yamaguchi hums, putting his own book back on the shelf.

They don’t have to search for Shouyou for long because when they leave the aisle, he’s already sitting at a table, drowning in a sea of novels. A few of them are already open in a half-circle around him, and when he sees them coming toward him, he smiles and waves them over.

“I found a bunch of good books!” he says, gesturing in a wide arc around him.

“Are any of them relevant?” Kei asks with a smirk, delighted when Shouyou’s face pinches.

_“Yes_ , they are,” he says, picking up a book and shoving it in Kei’s face. ”See? See? This one is about body swaps!”

Kei reads the title and lifts his eyebrows in mock surprise. ”Wow, you really did manage to find one whole book. I’m impressed.”

Shouyou sticks his tongue out, squeezing his eyes shut. ”I found more than just one book!”

A librarian shushes them harshly, and Yamaguchi snickers as Shouyou flushes a bright pink, looking away sheepishly. Kei raises a hand in apology but otherwise ignores her.

“As I was saying,” Shouyou continues in a much quieter voice, “I found a bunch of books we can read through. Maybe one of them has some answers.”

“Oh boy,” Kei says flatly, but he takes a seat next to Shouyou and pulls one of the books off the top of the pile and opens it up, pushing the others away so he has somewhere to rest it. Yamaguchi sits across from them and looks at them with some kind of twinkle in his eye but he doesn’t say anything and picks up a book for himself.

The book Kei has opened is nothing special. Some trickster god sets up some random personality switching between a group of first years, and while it’s certainly traumatizing for those characters, Kei finds himself yawning just a few pages in. He’s pretty sure there’s no divine intervention mangling with his and Shouyou’s life, anyway. By the third chapter, Kei’s given up and swapped it for another.

This one’s about a boy and a girl—it’s always a boy and a girl, he muses, because that’s what generates drama. Some poor sap is thrust into the body of a girl and has to spend his days figuring out how to act like one, because it’s funny and sexy, or something like that. It’s totally unrealistic and it makes no sense, and it’s oversexualized and kind of gross.

This one’s no different, and they up the ante with the swaps occuring every time the characters kiss. It’s all breasts and touching and Kei skims through those parts quickly, not terribly interested in the characters or the plot because it doesn’t apply to anything in the real world. They seem to have some measure of control over their swaps, and they do it frequently enough that he doesn’t even see the merit in continuing what thirty or so chapters remain.

None of this is helpful in any way. These novels are so outlandish and downright _weird_ that Kei can’t even begin to bridge similarities between them and his own situation, even if he admits to himself that _any_ body swap is already outlandish enough. But even if he can’t relate to these stories, even if he and Shouyou aren’t the cookie cutter boy and girl found in all of these novels, they make him feel exposed in a way, like he’s being scrutinized by some unknown power. Like he’s being watched and examined, like someone’s waiting for him to violate Shouyou’s body and take advantage of their situation. Like he’s supposed to think that the body he’s in is nothing more than something for him to play with.

Kei finds himself running his hand over his arm, feeling the soft skin under the pads of his fingers. He’s intimately aware that it’s not his arm, that it’s not his body, but it feels so real and so natural and he’s gotten so used to this tiny body that it’s hard to believe that it’s not really his.

He picks up another book.

It’s a romance because of course it is. It starts with a couple breaking up because the boy “can’t understand a woman’s heart.” A huge cliché, Kei thinks. It makes no sense. He knows that in just a few pages the male protagonist will swap places with a girl, which will somehow teach him how women function.

It’s total bullshit. He’s been stuck inside Shouyou’s body for a month and he still has no idea how the guy works.

Well, that’s not true exactly. Kei understands his passion, his drive, in a way that he never could have if he didn’t experience his struggle firsthand. He never would have found out how Shouyou views the world, how exhilarating it feels to _fly_ , how hard he’s worked to get where he is today.

But Kei still can’t figure out what Shouyou’s thinking half the time, even when he puts his heart on display for all to see. Maybe he’s overthinking it. Maybe he runs himself in circles until Shouyou is an enigma, because he’s too busy second-guessing himself to figure him out.

The next book has romance in it too. These kinds of books always lead to some kind of romance. It’s always played up so sexually and Kei can’t even begin to imagine why this trope is so common for a romance story. He supposes there are reasons for it, even if he doesn’t understand it. But the way these authors go about it make him uncomfortable, the way they write the bodies as so obscenely sexual, like objects and toys instead of real flesh.

Kei would never treat Shouyou’s body the way some of these protagonists do with their partners’ bodies.

He puts the book down in disgust and goes to pick up another one, but he stops short when he sees Shouyou’s form hunched over and leaning on the desk, his head turned toward Kei. His eyes are closed and he’s breathing softly through a tiny slit in his mouth, his face serene as he sleeps.

Kei scoffs quietly, but he doesn’t turn away, his hand hovering over the next book as he stares. In the back of his mind he thinks that what he’s doing might be creepy, but he reasons with that part of his brain that he’s looking at _his face_ and really, it’s no weirder than looking at himself in the mirror.

There’s an open book under Shouyou’s face, turned to some page in the middle of the story, and his hands are resting on the table, fingers pinching loosely at a page as if he’s getting ready to turn it. He must have fallen asleep in the middle of reading. Kei had known that Shouyou would get bored of all this research quickly, but he didn’t quite expect _this_.

He also doesn’t expect the way his heartbeat picks up, pounding quickly against his chest as he watches the rise and fall of Shouyou’s back. He can feel his breath fall in time with his, the soft lull bringing peace to his mind. It’s comforting, but even still he can feel some twisting in his stomach, a fluttering of _something_ , that Kei doesn’t really want to think about right now.

Shouyou moans softly in his sleep, shifting around on the table to get in a better position. Kei watches that, too, from the way Shouyou’s eyes flutter before settling again, to the way his breath hitches and then lets out all at once.

Kei can feel his face heat up, his heart beating faster. The setting sun streams through the windows and illuminates Shouyou so that he’s _glowing_ , and Kei didn’t realize that his body could do something like that. He thought that only Shouyou (in his own body) could shine so brightly, capture the attention of everyone around him. Maybe, he thinks, it has more to do with who Shouyou is as a person and less to do with the body he’s in. Maybe he can make anyone brighter, polish them until they shine, no matter who they are.

Kei has always associated himself with the moon (it’s in his name, after all), and Shouyou with the sun. He has pale skin and light hair and a dull personality that draws no attention to it. Shouyou, though, is sunkissed and wild, with messy curls that can blind anyone who isn’t prepared to see that shock of orange on his head. When they switched bodies, Kei was sure that wouldn’t change, and in many ways it hasn’t. He gets more attention than he’d like, like there’s a spotlight constantly shining down on him. Shouyou, on the other hand, hasn’t gotten _enough_ attention, at least not as much as he’s used to.

But now, as he stares for a way longer time than he should, he sees Shouyou’s sun peeking through Kei’s thick skin, drawing attention and capturing it so Kei can’t even look away if he wanted to. Somehow, despite all the features on his face being _Kei’s_ , Shouyou looks like himself.

It’s blinding.

A quiet snickering draws Kei out of his thoughts and turns his attention to Yamaguchi, who’s hunched over and leering at him like he’s just told the most hilarious joke he’s ever heard.

“What?” Kei asks, the heat on his cheeks flaring from being caught staring.

“Oh, nothing,” Yamaguchi says, feigning innocence. But his gaze flickers toward Shouyou’s sleeping form and then back to Kei, his eyes crinkling with delight.

“It’s not nothing,” Kei says, his voice dangerously low. ”What are you staring at?”

“Nothing at all!” he insists, but there’s a wide grin on his face, like he knows something that Kei doesn’t. ”I was just thinking, is all.”

Kei frowns.

“If you keep making that face, it’ll freeze that way. Do you want to be responsible for giving Shouyou a permanent frown?” he warns mockingly, and it’s jarring enough that Kei’s face falls slack.

“You’re annoying,” he says, pointedly pulling a book off the pile and flipping it open to a random page. He ignores Yamaguchi’s chuckle. He ignores the heat on his cheeks. He ignores the weird feeling in his stomach.

The next book is another romantic comedy, and Kei tosses the book to the side with a grunt of frustration.


	11. step 11. intensity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey, asshole,” he says, stepping bodily between Shouyou and Terushima, as if he looks imposing enough to intimidate him. “Why don’t you leave him alone?”
> 
> Terushima’s face contorts in a grimace, and he glares down at Kei with the rage of someone who absolutely intends to get his way. “Why don’t you leave _us_ alone, carrot boy? It’s rude to interrupt someone’s conversation.”

They couldn’t manage to find anything useful by the time the second series of preliminary games rolls around, and so Kei stands on the court in all of his one hundred sixty-two centimeter glory, his bright hair shining in the overhead gym lights. Still, he thinks that the hair isn’t as bright as the opposing team’s uniforms, which are yellow and glaring and distracting in so many different ways.

Really, everything about these players is distracting in ways that Kei has only ever observed in Hinata, from the way they bounce everywhere with too much energy to their wide smiles and cool guy attitudes.

But at least he doesn’t have to look at Shouyou’s distracting face on top of that, since it’s _his_ face right now. He only has to deal with the distractions posed by the Johzenji players, and while they’re wild and free and they move around like they’ve never heard of energy conservation in their lives, Kei can deal with them.

Kageyama tosses a ball to him. It’s first tempo still, since they’re not confident enough to do the weird duo’s freak quicks yet, but Kei jumps high enough to spike it over the net and get them the point.

It’s a relief in a way, and it’s so much different from his last game against Ougiminami. This time around, he’s managed to hold himself together and fight well into the second set.

He’s nowhere near as good as Shouyou, but he doesn’t have to be. He just has to be as good as himself.

There’s a loud cheer from his teammates behind him when he spikes the ball, and even though he’s still uncomfortable with all the attention, he’s proud of himself, and he can’t keep a smile from lightly dusting his lips.

“Nice kill, Hinata!” Shouyou shouts, waving his arms around emphatically. It makes Kei’s smile grow wider because he’s doing well and Shouyou’s proud of him and that’s exactly what he wanted.

The next rally and the rally after that are both ended with points for Karasuno, until their streak is put to an abrupt stop when Johzenji gets another point and shifts the momentum. But Kei can spike, and even if it’s not what he’s used to, not what he enjoys, it’s fulfilling all the same because he has the support of his friends cheering him on, and he knows he can keep secure Shouyou’s place on the team.

After they score once again and they have a three-point lead, Kageyama pulls him to the side. “We should try the quick.”

“Huh.” Kei keeps his face carefully emotionless, but there’s a spike of nerves that stabs at his heart. “Why?”

“To get us the win,” Kageyama says simply, intensely. “We’re ahead and it doesn’t matter if we mess up right now. We’ve been practicing it enough for the past few weeks and you can spike them most of the time.”

“But this is in a real game,” Kei says slowly. “Are you sure?”

“There’s no use practicing a play if we don’t use it in a match.” Kageyama shrugs and Kei can’t argue with that. He has been pushing himself harder and harder to match up with Kageyama’s stupidly fast quicks, and the tosses he gives to Kei have been nearly perfected. It’s almost weird how they seem to freeze in mid-air in front of him, the perfect toss for a reckless duo.

“All right,” Kei says, even if he doesn’t feel one hundred percent confident in his abilities to perform. At least he can be sure that messing up the quick here won’t destroy Shouyou’s chances of returning to the court when he’s back in his own body.

The next rally begins. Shouyou is serving, and it’s high and clean if not light and easy to receive. So when it comes back, the ball is flying from a spike from the other team. But Azumane picks it up cleanly, punting it high into the air directly toward Kageyama.

But Kei barely sees any of this. He’s already sprinting toward an open spot of the court, where there are no blockers. It throws off Johzenji’s players and they gape as they watch him cross the court in no time at all, unable to keep up with him.

Perfect. Speed is essential.

He stops so suddenly that no one notices except for Kageyama, who’s watching his moves carefully. Then he jumps, coiling his muscles tightly before releasing them in a burst of height, and he can see over the net and he feels metaphorical wings on his back and it’s _fantastic_.

His arm is already swinging downward before the ball is flying toward him at a speed so fast Kei can barely see it. But it’s there and it’s perfect and it stops right in front of him and his hands hit it and it goes flying.

The ball hits the court before anyone knows what happened.

There’s a silence for a few seconds, and then wild cheering erupts around him. Shouyou actually runs up to him and picks him up in a tight hug, spinning him around and screaming unbearably loudly in his ear.

“Can you shut up,” Kei says, but he can’t get his annoyance to come through his words because he’s too busy celebrating, himself. He did it. And it worked!

The other team is shouting too, but they’re far more confused and surprised by the sudden weird quick than anything. But when Shouyou puts him back down and his head stops spinning from all the movement, Kei can see determined smirks on their faces and shifting glances as they contemplate this new move.

“Nice kill,” Kageyama says, just barely containing a wobbly grin on his face. His eyes are too bright, and his mouth quivers with excitement, and it’s the happiest Kei has seen the king in days. This is what he’s been waiting for, this is what they’ve been practicing for, and Kei is all too happy to finally deliver.

(He doesn’t _hate_ Kageyama, so he’s glad that he could do this for his sake, too, but to be honest, he’s more relieved that Karasuno’s favorite decoy is back in the game. He’s glad he could help Shouyou gain back his notoriety and his status as the demonic shrimp, or whatever other name the volleyball players of Miyagi had dubbed him.)

“You did it!” Shouyou shouts, finally calming down enough to form actual, coherent phrases.

Kei nods, but Shouyou’s smile is infectious and he finds himself mirroring it on his own lips. “You helped me.”

“But you actually did it!” Shouyou repeats, grabbing Kei’s arms like he can’t even believe what he’s just seen. “You did it!”

“I did it, yeah, now let go of me,” Kei says, prying Shouyou’s fingers off of him. “It’s starting to hurt.”

Shouyou eases up on his grip but doesn’t let go entirely, and Kei’s vision starts swimming the longer he stares at him. There’s a weird fluttering in his stomach again, that feeling he gets whenever he stares too long at Shouyou.

He shakes his head frantically and looks away, no longer comfortable with maintaining eye contact with him.

Then a whistle sounds, and Shouyou lets out a yelp and drops him like he’s been burned, already jogging back to the back of the court before Kei registers that he’s leaving. His heart is pounding in his chest when he turns back around and gets ready for the next rally, silently hoping that Kageyama will toss another minus tempo quick to him again.

The Johzenji match, even if it’s against more difficult and practiced opponents overall, is still far easier for Kei than the Ougiminami match. This time, he’s had time to practice moving and playing in Shouyou’s body, and he’s learned his limits and his limitlessness, and he’s figured out just how to push himself to perform to Shouyou’s potential.

And this time, he’s not alone. He has Shouyou’s support and help, and he doesn’t feel quite so envious of Shouyou’s… well, everything. It’s shifted somehow, and he finds that he’s no longer jealous of Shouyou’s spotlight and talent and charisma and everything that makes Shouyou himself.

He doesn’t exactly know what it’s shifted to, but the feeling inside him is lighter and he feels better than he has felt since he started high school back in April.

The next rally sends the ball off gently again because Shouyou still has no serving skills to his name (not that Kei is any better, but still). It’s picked up easily by the other team, and Kei isn’t able to jump high enough to block the incoming ball. It drops to the ground, and their momentum is halted.

But the ball passes back and forth, and before Kei knows it, the score is 23:21 in favor of Karasuno. And Kei has managed to play in the game the whole time.

It’s almost a relief, in a way, because it’s so different from the Ougiminami match. There’s no threat of him being called off the court, except when Nishinoya calls him out to swap in. It’s nice, and he feels better about himself than he has in what feels like an eternity (but has only been about a month, since this whole mess started).

By the time that it’s his turn to serve again, his heart is light and he’s fired up and he feels like he could score a hundred points on his own.

The ball goes over the net (also an improvement from Ougiminami), and Johzenji picks it up, passing it around recklessly without care to who actually receives the ball. It’s their style, after all: wild and free. They look like they’re having way too much fun, but the fiery determination in Kei’s heart is no different, he supposes. He’s seen Shouyou act much the same, with flailing limbs and big smiles and loud shouts of victory whenever he pulls off something incredible.

The ball is set high into the air, and their number four, a guy with an undercut and bleached blonde hair, jumps up to spike. Shouyou, as great as he is at volleyball, still sucks at doing his job, and can’t get to that side of the net fast enough, and so it goes through.

But Kei is there, and he puts his arms out to receive it, watching it carefully as it flies toward him. “Chance ball!”

The ball gets closer, and Kei thinks he might have miscalculated its trajectory.

It slams directly into his face.

But it goes up, he observes distantly as he flies back onto his ass. It goes up and he connects the ball. The sting on his cheek reminds him of every single time he’s ever laughed at Shouyou for receiving the ball in the same way.

The captain is there to pass it back to Kageyama, who sets the ball to Shouyou. Even through the swell of his cheek, Kei can see the excitement bubbling over onto Shouyou’s face as he runs up to spike. It’s nothing special, just a plain first tempo quick that anyone could hit, but the pride and joy resting unbridled on Shouyou’s face says so much more. Kei vaguely remembers a moment in their shared past, when Shouyou had looked at the king with a terrifyingly serious expression and announced that he would gratefully take any ball tossed to him.

All of this happens in just a few seconds, just long enough for Kei to push himself back up off the floor and reposition himself. Shouyou slams his hand down on the ball as soon as Kei’s mind replays that old memory, so long ago that Shouyou still looked like _Shouyou_ and Kei still sneered down at him whenever they passed by each other.

The spike is powerful enough to get past Johzenji’s blockers, but their libero receives it nicely and it goes up, high enough that their setter can get a good toss in. Their number four is already running up to spike, and Kei shifts his position so that he’ll be able to receive a cross.

When he jumps, though, so does Shouyou.

His arms are out over the net, and though Kei can’t see his face he imagines a sparkle in his eyes as he concentrates on winning. When Johzenji’s number four spikes the ball, Shouyou is there, and the ball falls onto the floor, bouncing loudly in the sudden silence in the gym.

Kei can’t see Shouyou’s face, but he _can_ see number four’s. He expects anger or frustration or _anything_ but the admiration and awe that shines through the slack in his jaw and the unwavering gaze that fixes on Shouyou. His gaping mouth widens into a smile, just barely, and he looks up at Shouyou the way Kei imagines a dog might look at his owner.

Something churns in Kei’s stomach.

And then the whistle blows, the point is given to Karasuno, and Kei doesn’t have time to think about the growing pit inside him because it’s his turn to serve again.

The remaining few points are spent with an uneasy feeling in Kei’s gut, but he ignores it with all his might and focuses on jumping and spiking and making sure that he’s playing to his best ability.

Then the second set ends, and with it the match, and while Kei missed a couple of Kageyama’s tosses, he was able to pull most of them off. He was able to do those stupidly fast freak quicks, and even if it’s not perfect, not like Shouyou, it’s still good.

As they clear off the court, Kei has to fend off Tanaka and Nishinoya, who are still gushing about his success with the minus tempo quicks. It’s been so long since they’ve seen them, he supposes, so it’s a special moment. That fact doesn’t make him more open to all this touching and screaming and jumping, though.

But Shouyou is beaming too, even if he’s not among the small crowd around Kei as they walk off the courts. And something about that open elation and pride has Kei smiling, too.

Yamaguchi flashes him a knowing smile, but he must be the only one in on the joke because Kei is utterly confused at what it means.

When they leave the gym through the double doors, they break off a little, either for restroom breaks or snack breaks as they prepare for their next match of the day. Shouyou is part of the former group, and he follows after Kageyama toward the bathroom while Kei settles in on a nearby bench next to Yamaguchi to cool down and catch his breath.

“It’s hard,” Kei says, his voice low even though there’s no one around. “Jumping around all the time, I mean.”

Yamaguchi hums. “When you’re that short, you don’t have the choice to cut corners. You just have to keep going.”

“It’s no wonder Shouyou is a bundle of energy,” Kei agrees with a nod. “He’s so used to running around that he doesn’t know how to stop.”

Yamaguchi laughs at that, soft and sweet and good-natured even with its callous undertones. “That must be it.”

“I don’t know how the king keeps up with him.”

“You’re keeping up with him right now, you know,” Yamaguchi points out, and Kei frowns.

“Yeah, but I don’t have a choice, do I?” Kei shrugs and leans back on the bench, closing his eyes and taking in a few breaths before continuing. He feels his heart rate slow with every passing second, and his breathing evens out. “Kageyama _chooses_ to do it.”

“You’ve always had a choice,” Yamaguchi says quietly, so quietly that Kei almost doesn’t hear it.

He blinks open his eyes and stares hard at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Yamaguchi jumps, as if he didn’t expect Kei to respond. He throws up his hands with a tiny yelp and waves them around in quick, rigid motions, his eyes darting everywhere except for Kei’s face. “No–nothing! I didn’t mean anything by it!”

Kei grunts, sitting up again so he can keep some semblance of eye contact with Yamaguchi. “If I wasn’t doing this right now, I’d be breaking the promise I made to Shouyou. I can’t do that to him.”

“I know,” Yamaguchi says, and his voice sounds far-off, if not a little wistful. “You care a lot about him.”

Those words hit Kei like a truck, and his brows pull together as he attempts to parse what they mean. “Heh?”

Yamaguchi just smiles at him, but his expression is serious and intense as he stares at Kei. Kei shifts under the pressure. “Don’t worry about it.”

He has the sneaking suspicion that Yamaguchi is keeping something from him.

But he doesn’t have time to consider what that _something_ is because Kageyama returns from the bathroom and Kei notices a distinct lack of presence beside him.

“Where’s Tsukishima?” he asks, pushing himself up from the bench. Yamaguchi follows soon after, stretching his arms up high over his head.

Kageyama shrugs. “Beats me. He wasn’t there when I left. Figured he was already back here with you.”

Kei frowns, glancing around the lobby just in case he’d missed Shouyou coming back. When he can’t see any tall blonds mingling around, his heart sinks a little. “I’ll go look for him.”

Kageyama rolls his eyes and mumbles something under his breath that Kei can’t quite make out. “Maybe it’d be better if he stayed lost.”

Kei keeps his face carefully impassive, even if his chest clenches. “What do you mean?”

Kageyama sighs loudly, but it comes out as more of a growl. “He’s an asshole. Always acting like he’s better than us and making fun of us.”

Kei can’t help the defensive anger that wells up inside him. “He’s gotten better,” he snaps, and he’s not sure why he says it like _that_. “He’s changed a lot recently.”

“Oh, please,” Kageyama says, lolling his head to the side as he stares down at Kei. “He’s just stringing you along and pretending to get on your good side. He probably has some plan to humiliate you up his sleeve.”

“You’re wrong,” Kei retorts, and even he is surprised at how angry he sounds. Kageyama looks away. “He’s being genuine. Like I said, he’s changed. You should give him a chance.”

He doesn’t wait for Kageyama to respond because he’s angry and hurt and he’s confused at _why_ he’s angry and hurt and so he stomps off down the hall because running away from his feelings is way easier than confronting them.

He stops in front of the bathroom just briefly, looking around to see if he can see Shouyou somewhere. When he confirms that the area is empty, he pushes the bathroom door open and checks there, too, making sure that it’s also empty.

And so he continues down the hall until he comes to a more secluded space, hidden from the main lobby by a few pillars.

He slows his pace and quiets his step when he hears another voice, one that’s vaguely familiar. He can’t place who it belongs to until he skirts around the pillar and sees dyed blond hair peeking out from behind a corner. He frowns, wondering why Johzenji’s number four is here instead of with his team.

Kei sees a taller person behind him, and his face twists weirdly, mimicking his stomach, when he recognizes him (because of course he would recognize himself anywhere).

Shouyou is shifting from side to side, and though Kei can’t see his face clearly around the number four’s head, he doesn’t look happy.

“Your blocks today were incredible,” number four purrs, leaning in closer to Shouyou.

Shouyou side steps out of his way, and Kei can finally see his expression. His lips are pursed in a thin line and his eyes are wide, darting everywhere, as if he’s looking for a way to escape. It makes Kei’s blood boil over. “Oh, uh, tha–thank you, Terushima, but, uh—”

“You know, they say that blockers and spikers make the best couples,” Terushima continues, fishing out his phone and flipping it open. “It’s something about the friction between them that creates the brightest sparks. Why don’t you give me your number so we can test that theory?”

“Sorry, um, I can’t do that,” Shouyou stammers, still inching away.

“Why not? What about just one date?” Terushima demands, running soft fingers down Shouyou’s arm that bring a shudder down his spine.

There’s a spike of—of _something_ that pierces through Kei’s belly, and before he knows it, he’s already surging forward, footsteps pounding louder than the beat of his heart. He doesn’t exactly know what he’s doing, but he knows he’s going to stop whatever this is before it goes any further because Shouyou is uncomfortable and he absolutely _does not_ deserve to deal with this.

“Hey, asshole,” he says, stepping bodily between Shouyou and Terushima, as if he looks imposing enough to intimidate him. “Why don’t you leave him alone?”

“Hinata?” Shouyou squeaks, but Kei ignores him in favor of glaring as hard as he can at Terushima.

Terushima’s face contorts in a grimace, and he glares down at Kei with the rage of someone who absolutely intends to get his way. “Why don’t you leave _us_ alone, carrot boy? It’s rude to interrupt someone’s conversation.”

Kei instinctively reaches up and feels his poofy glob of hair, but he’s already shoving his other hand into Terushima’s chest. “He’s obviously not interested, you creep.”

“How would you know?” Terushima says, leaning down in an exaggerated manner that calls way too much attention to Kei’s height. He grabs at Kei’s shoulder and shoves him aside with no more effort than if he were blowing a leaf off his arm, and he steps even closer to Shouyou so that Kei can’t possibly worm his way between them again.

But Kei isn’t so easily deterred, and he grabs onto Terushima’s sleeve and pulls him back harshly, forcing him to face him. Shouyou leans closer to him and grabs onto his shoulders as if he’s a shield. “I said, leave him alone.”

Terushima huffs, something between a grunt and a chuckle. “What, is a shrimp like you his _keeper?_ Or are you his boyfriend?” The huff turns into a full-on cackle, as if the thought of dating Kei is just _that_ hilarious to him.

“And if I am?” he levels, and Shouyou lets out a surprised squeak and grips him harder, fingers digging into his skin. But Kei ignores that, too busy staring Terushima down. It’s a threat, but something about the exchange has Kei’s stomach doing flips. That doesn’t matter now, though, since he’s way more focused on getting Shouyou away from this guy.

Terushima laughs again, but it’s no longer so malicious. If anything, it sounds hearty and good-natured, but Kei doesn’t trust that. “Oh! That’s precious.” He wipes a tear from his eye and turns back to Shouyou, who’s still cowering as far behind Kei as he can get. “Absolutely adorable. Sorry about the misunderstanding, then.”

He pushes himself away from Shouyou and even takes a step back, admitting defeat. Kei immediately grabs Shouyou’s hand and pulls him toward him. “Let’s go, Tsukishima.”

But Terushima’s already looking Shouyou up and down again, a tiny smirk still on his face. “But remember, if things don’t work out between you and your shrimpy boyfriend, you know where to find me.” He finishes with a little wink and saunters off, supposedly unruffled.

When he rounds the corner and disappears from sight, Shouyou all but collapses onto Kei’s back, and Kei grunts under the sudden pressure. “You saved me! Thank you, Kei!”

Kei grunts again, more annoyed this time. “What were you even doing all the way back here, dumbass?”

Shouyou squeezes Kei’s hand. “I was just going to the bathroom! And then he—! I saw him and he asked me to follow him!”

Kei sighs, irritation bleeding out the longer Shouyou talks. “Don’t you have a terrible track record with bathrooms? You shouldn’t be so trusting.”

“I didn’t think he was going to do _that!”_ Shouyou protests, nudging Kei with his arm.

“What did you _think_ he was going to do?” he asks incredulously. “Didn’t you see the way he was looking at you all through the game?”

“What?” Shouyou squeaks. “How was he looking at me?”

Kei sighs, long and exaggerated so that Shouyou knows exactly how unobservant he is. “Like you hang the stars in the sky or something equally sappy and gross.”

Shouyou swings his arms playfully back and forth, jerking Kei with him. Kei wonders why, exactly, they’re still holding hands, but he doesn’t do anything about it regardless, and neither does Shouyou. And so their hands stay connected.

“I only had a few good blocks, though,” Shouyou counters.

“I don’t think that’s what he was really focused on, Shouyou,” Kei says.

“Oh.” Shouyou pauses for a moment. “All right.”

 _“All right?”_ Kei repeats incredulously. “What does _that_ mean?”

“It means all right,” Shouyou says, shrugging his shoulders. Kei’s arm bobs up and down with the motion. “I just didn’t notice.”

Kei scoffs to hide the way his stomach clenches. “What, are you saying that you would have gone on a date with him if you’d noticed how he was looking at you?”

“What? No!” Shouyou says, finally dropping Kei’s hand. For some reason, the denial settles the roiling in Kei’s stomach. “I just… well, I get it, I guess.”

It nearly stops Kei’s heart when he says that, but he refuses to let that show. “O–oh, yeah.”

“You, too?” Shouyou asks softly, incredulously, and all Kei can do is nod woodenly.

“We should head back,” Kei says, suddenly uncomfortable with the conversation. His throat is inexplicably dry and his breaths come short and jagged. “The next match will start soon.”

“Right!” And suddenly the topic is all but forgotten, the upcoming volleyball game replacing it entirely. “We get to play again!”

“Yeah,” Kei agrees.

Shouyou flashes down a bright, excited smile, and there are stars in his eyes and a light flush on his cheeks and his eyes squint at the corners and those short, unmanageable breaths that Kei was struggling with cut off entirely as his throat closes up and he finds he can’t breathe at all. His chest clenches and his stomach flips and his palms go clammy and—

Oh.

The realization hits Kei like a rude wake-up call, a bucket of ice cold water dumped on top of him far too early in the morning. Except it’s not morning and he’s fully awake and he’s completely dry except for the sweat breaking out on his face.

“Let’s go!” Shouyou calls, grabbing Kei’s clammy hand again and pulling him along behind him back to the lobby, back where there are people. Kei lets himself be dragged along behind him, unable and unwilling to fight back against Shouyou’s grip.

He’s far too aware of Shouyou’s hand around his, fitting so neatly around it. If it were the other way around, if they were in their own bodies, it would probably feel much nicer.

He’s far too aware of the smile on Shouyou’s face, even if he can only see his profile as he walks, the corners of his mouth spread wide, his canines just barely visible. Even if it’s Kei’s face, Shouyou makes it distinctly _his_ , and there’s a brightness to his features that might never be possible if Kei was in that body.

He’s far too aware of the memories of those sidelong glances and knowing smiles that Yamaguchi has been giving him which, in retrospect, were so obvious that it’s almost painful.

And now, as Kei finds he can’t tear his eyes away from Shouyou, as he finds himself captivated by his mere presence, he’s far too aware of his own feelings, the ones that make his heart beat harder and faster, the ones that make his breathing belabored, the ones that make his head spin until he’s so dizzy that he thinks he might have fallen over if not for Shouyou’s steady grip on him.

He likes Shouyou.

Shouyou, with his unrefined enthusiasm and naive sincerity, with his bright and too-happy personality, with his sunny disposition that contrasts Kei’s moonlight spectacularly, with his _everything_ that’s so entirely opposite of Kei.

He likes Shouyou.

He _likes_ Shouyou.

_Christ._


	12. step 12. promises unsaid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he realizes he’s staring, he further realizes that there’s still a faint dusting of pink on his cheeks, remnants of the Wakunan game.
> 
> Nope. He’s not doing this.

Wakunan was easy. Well, comparatively so. In reality, Kei had been fighting for breath, his legs weeping and aching as he ran across the court. It was, all things considered, a difficult match, against a captain whose play style is similar to that Little Giant who Shouyou idolizes so much. Somehow, they’d ended up in a competition, with the captain egging him on, daring him to beat him. And, well, Kei hates to lose.

But it was _easy_ , Kei realizes now as he watches the ball pass back and forth from Date Tech’s side to Seijoh’s side. Their match against Wakunan didn’t have an iron wall or spikes that flew so quickly he couldn’t see the ball. Their match didn’t have Date Tech’s number seven, or the grand king, or Seijoh’s ace, or that annoyingly perky Date Tech setter.

Kei feels nearly embarrassed that he wore himself ragged during such an _easy_ game. Whoever wins this match, surely, will put him through a torturous course, a hellish game that’ll leave him begging for mercy in a puddle of sweat on the floor.

Maybe he’s being a little dramatic here, but whatever. He can afford to be dramatic at times.

And there’s other… _things_ that he’s avoiding, and if being dramatic and running through precautionary plays helps him stay far, far away from those thoughts, then, well, that’s just perfect. Ideal, actually. He’d take a million miserable thoughts of his own failures over… _those things_. The unmentionable things.

When he blinks, he finds himself staring at Shouyou, who’s leaning forward in his seat watching the match intensely, like he’s a part of it, like he has a say in its outcome.

When he realizes he’s staring, he further realizes that there’s still a faint dusting of pink on his cheeks, remnants of the Wakunan game.

Nope. He’s not doing this.

He turns his head with purpose, pointedly ignoring Shouyou as much as he possibly can. Unfortunately, he had forgotten that he was sitting right next to the king, and so without anywhere else to turn he’s forced to give his attention to Kageyama in his desperation. He, too, is watching the game, his brow furrowed and fists clenched and eyes flickering back and forth, following the ball, and Kei can almost see him running scenarios and situations and plays in his head. But it’s not nearly as endearing as it is on Shouyou.

Nope! He’s definitely not doing this! Not today, not ever!

He huffs loudly through his nose and accidentally grabs the attention of Kageyama, who’s looks at him like he’s a ticking bomb.

“What?” Kei grunts, as if he doesn’t already know.

“You… okay?” Kageyama asks slowly, his face contorting into something unreadable, like the words he’s saying are causing him pain.

“I’m fine,” he says, looking away before Kageyama can say anything else.

But the king doesn’t know social cues from a toaster and Kei feels himself pulled back around sharply so he’s facing him again. “What are you doing?” He says it under his breath, low enough that Shouyou can’t hear (Kei wonders if he’d even be able to hear if they _shouted_ at him, since he’s so far into the match before him that he’s tuned out the rest of the world), but it’s angry and aggressive nonetheless.

“I don’t want to have this conversation,” he says, tugging at his shoulder just enough to free him from Kageyama’s grasp.

He seems to finally take the hint and lets Kei go free finally. He turns forward with another huff, but it’s less indignant this time, less pissed off.

“Who do you think will win?” he hears the captain say from the row behind him. He twists his neck so he’s staring up at the third years, all clustered around Daichi’s chair and listening intently to whatever he’s saying.

Sugawara hums low and melodic as he ponders the question. “Date Tech is doing well with defense today, but…”

His gaze trails from Sawamura to the court as the previous rally ends with a break for Seijoh. The team rotates, and it’s Oikawa’s turn to serve. Kei tenses up his shoulders at the terrifying, demonic expression the grand king has on his face.

The ball goes up, and it’s barely begun its descent before Oikawa jumps up and slams his hand down on it. The ball flies so quickly across the court that it becomes a blur that even Kei, with his weirdly enhanced vision (thanks to Shouyou’s good genes), can’t follow.

“Seijoh has Oikawa,” Azumane finishes with a shudder. “I’m almost wishing that we’re up against Date Tech next.”

Sugawara whistles, impressed with Azumane’s apparent character development, but he sinks into his seat and looks like he wants nothing more than to agree with Azumane. Then Sugawara catches Kei’s eyes on them and turns his gaze downward. “What about you?”

“What about me?” he asks with a frown.

“Who do you think is going to win?” Azumane supplies with an easy smile, but the corners of his mouth twitch as he attempts to cover up his anxiety.

“Oh,” he answers brilliantly. “Um…” He turns back to the court for a moment, playing through the possibilities in his head. “Seijoh, probably.”

Azumane’s smile disappears. “I thought you’d say that.”

Even Sawamura seems a little put off by the prediction, but he doesn’t look surprised by it. “They’ve improved their serves and their coordination,” he observes. “Even the first years seem to have synced with the team completely now.”

Kei nods. “The new Date Tech setter is all over the place, and even if he’s making some good plays, they’re not consistent yet.”

“He’ll probably be a force to be reckoned with next year, though,” Sugawara says, studying Date Tech’s team carefully.

“Are you guys talking about the game?” Shouyou suddenly asks, leaning back in his chair and flipping his head upside down so he can see the third years. His glasses fall onto his forehead, but he doesn’t seem to care. “I hope we get to play against Aone-san again!”

Sugawara quirks an eyebrow. “Do you want to show him your blocking skills, Tsukishima?” he guesses, and Shouyou wrinkles his face up, thinking hard about that question. Then he seems to realize something and his jaw drops open in surprise, his eyes going wide.

“Oh! Um… Yeah! That’s what I want. Yep, definitely!” he babbles, throwing his arms in the air for emphasis. Kei isn’t sure what he’s trying to emphasize, though.

Sawamura stares down at him like he’s grown another head. “Are you all right, Tsukishima? You’ve been acting a little weird lately.” Sugawara laughs, and it’s as much confirmation as they need.

A blush breaks out on Shouyou’s face and he flips around in the seat, grabbing the back of it tightly with clawed fingers. “I’m fine! Really! Everything’s going just great!” he says forcefully, and Kei can see his knuckles going white as they dig into the plastic.

“Maybe hanging out with Hinata really has brought out a better side of you,” Sawamura suggests lightly. Azumane nods sagely. “It’s not bad, though.”

“You were really scary before,” Azumane says, pursing his lips immediately after as if he regrets speaking his thoughts out loud. “N–not that it’s a bad thing!”

Shouyou tilts his head to the side. “I’m not _that_ scary,” he insists, “am I?”

Kei can’t tell who he’s talking about.

“Well…” Azumane reaches back and scratches at his neck, avoiding Shouyou’s intense stare.

“You’ve gotten a lot friendlier recently,” Sugawara says, and Azumane breathes out a sigh of relief now that the attention has been taken off of him.

“Ever since the summer training camp,” Sawamura says, his eyes narrowed. He shifts his gaze toward Kei, and Kei feels his heart stop for a moment. “It’s almost like you two have swapped personalities.”

Even Shouyou seems to recognize the gravity of the situation and freezes, his nails biting into the plastic seat and his face frozen in a rigid, thin-lipped smile. Kei feels like his body has unraveled and started floating around him, all his bodily processes suspended indefinitely. He can’t breathe, he can’t feel anything, he doesn’t think his heart is beating. He’s completely numb.

The only thought that runs through his head is that they’ve been found out.

Sugawara drags him back down to reality with a boisterous laugh, clutching at his belly as he leans forward onto Sawamura’s shoulder. “You two must have rubbed off on each other with all those late-night extra practices!” he says, clutching his belly as he laughs.

Sawamura relaxes as well, and leans back into Sugawara. “And you’ve been practicing more with Kageyama and Yamaguchi too now, right? They must be bringing out a whole new side of you.” He glances at Kei. “And somehow, they managed to calm you down, too. I wish I could say I had a hand in it.” He sighs wistfully, like a parent who’s watched his child grow up too quickly.

Kei can see Shouyou shaking, but he manages a stiff nod anyway. “Y–yeah,” he says. “That’s what must have happened. Hinata’s shining personality must have rubbed off on me, yeah.” He forces out an awkward chuckle.

Kei can think of several different sarcastic retorts to follow up on that, but they all die on his tongue the longer he watches Shouyou. Even embarrassed and worried and frozen stiff, he still manages to captivate Kei, draw him in, make him want to hang onto his every word, listen to all his thoughts.

No. Absolutely not. It’s not the time for that. He’s not thinking about it, he’s not even entertaining the _thought_ of thinking about it. Not today, preferably not ever.

Kei breathes out slowly, releasing all the built up pressure with it. “The after-practice practices have been a lot of help,” he says, forcing himself to look away from Shouyou.

“In more ways than one,” Azumane agrees.

The whistle blows, and Kei can see from the corner of his eye Shouyou whip his head around lightning quick to see what happened on the court. Kei, too, turns to look at the match, only to see the game drawing closer to its end. Seijoh has twenty-three points to Date Tech’s nineteen, and it feels almost hopeless now. His prediction will most likely come true.

Kageyama grumbles something unintelligible under his breath.

“What, were you looking forward to playing against Date Tech too, king?” Kei sneers, giving him a sidelong glance.

“No,” he growls, not looking away from the court. “Oikawa-senpai just pisses me off.”

Kei quirks up a smirk at that, but it’s surprisingly good-natured. Before he can say anything, though, Shouyou cuts him off.

“I know!” he exclaims, throwing his arms out. “He’s so powerful like _whoosh!_ And you can’t even see his serves!”

Kageyama gives him an odd stare, probably weirded out by hearing Shouyou’s simplified, onomatopoeic descriptions coming out of Kei’s mouth. Kei sympathizes—it took him a while to get used to it, too. But he nods anyway because he agrees. “He’s a good setter, too.”

“You should be more like him,” Shouyou muses with a serious face. There’s a tiny, tiny sparkle of mischief in his eyes, like he knows he’s riling Kageyama up, like he _enjoys_ it. Kei can’t help but think that maybe they aren’t so dissimilar after all.

Kageyama seems to burst into righteous flames. “He’s a third year!” he protests. “There’s a two year age gap there! I still need more experience to get that good.”

He says it so earnestly, so openly, and Kei feels uncomfortable suddenly sitting in the middle of them.

“I wasn’t insulting you,” Shouyou insists, but even Kei can’t tell how true that is.

Kageyama grunts and flops back in his seat. “Yeah, sure.” And they’re right back to where they were before, ignoring Shouyou with a vibrant intensity, with Kei in the middle to make sure that they’re kept fully separated from each other. Kei recalls again the conversation they had right before the Wakutani Minami match and almost regrets it, because while he definitely _meant_ what he said back there (and he refuses to ponder more on the meaning of his words because if he does, he’ll start thinking too much again), they seemed to have hurt Kageyama’s feelings in some way.

He doesn’t understand, though, why he’s taking it out on Shouyou and not him. But Kei doesn’t understand a lot about how the king works to begin with, and so he doesn’t bother asking. If anything, they’ll play another game and Kageyama will lose himself in the match and forget the conversation ever happened. That’d be ideal, because then Kei doesn’t have to deal with him at all. They can just move on and never look back. What a wonderful concept.

“Hey guys!” calls a relievingly familiar voice, and Kei turns with a tiny grin to see Yamaguchi threading his way through the bleachers until he’s sitting down next to Azumane, leaning forward on the seats so he can join the conversation. “Sorry I took so long.” He’s smiling, but he knows Yamaguchi well enough to know when his smiles are fake.

“You okay?” Kei asks, lowering his voice just enough to give it a serious undertone. Yamaguchi just smiles and nods. Kei lets it go this time because he sees the way his eyes crinkle and his eyebrows draw together in a determination he only sees on that face every once in a blue moon. It’s refreshing, in a way, because Yamaguchi is evolving and growing stronger and it’s nice to see that in someone he holds so dear to his heart.

Maybe they are all rubbing off on each other in some ways. Obviously it’s not to the point that Sawamura and Sugawara are hinting at (of course not), but there are little things here and there. It’s nice.

“How’s the game coming? Has anyone won yet?” Yamaguchi asks, looking away from Kei and toward the court. Aoba Johsai has twenty-four points now. Kei stifles a grimace and keeps his face carefully blank.

“Unless a miracle happens, we’re playing Seijoh next,” Kei says coolly, leaning back in his chair. “This is match point.”

Yamaguchi lets out a long breath. “They took first set, too? Date Tech’s not having a good game.”

“It’s probably because of their setter,” Kei says.

At that, Shouyou redirects his attention back to them, leaning bodily across Kei’s lap so he can see Yamaguchi. It takes every ounce of his effort not to react to it, not to flush bright red or shove him off or do something else that would be totally inappropriate and entirely embarrassing. “But their new setter is doing a lot of cool things, too!” he exclaims, and Kei wonders why he would be so adamant in defending someone he’s never even met. “He’s super tall and goes all _gwah_ with the ball!”

Yamaguchi hums and nods, accepting the new information readily. “But they’re having a hard time finding their rhythm.”

“Supposedly, it’s his first real game since the third year setter retired,” Shouyou explains matter-of-factly. “But he’ll get better! He’s gonna be hard to beat next year, I think.”

“Not if you get better too,” Yamaguchi points out, and Shouyou’s jaw drops like he hadn’t even thought about that possibility.

“You’re right! I won’t lose!” he shouts.

“You will if you still can’t receive,” Kei quips, smirking down at Shouyou. Sarcasm is good. Sarcasm distracts from his thoughts.

Shouyou glares up at him and sticks out his tongue, squeezing his eyes shut with force. “I’m getting better at that! Just watch! I’ll receive any ball that comes my way.”

He says it so sincerely, so emphatically, that Kei has no choice but to believe him. It’s far-fetched, perhaps, but to be honest, if there’s anyone who can do something as monumental as that, it would be Shouyou. He’s spent this whole year proving time and time again that he’s more than willing to do the impossible and make it look _easy_.

Shouyou shifts in his lap and Kei is reminded unpleasantly that he’s still on top of him. This time, he can’t distract himself from the flush that creeps up his neck and across his cheeks, and so he turns away quickly. He passes over Kageyama and finds himself looking back at Yamaguchi, who’s staring at him with big, round, amused eyes. There’s a tiny smirk lifting his lips, and he looks knowing and smug and Kei feels like he’d rather be anywhere but here.

Yamaguchi tilts his head in some kind of question, a silent _whatcha doin’ there, hm?_ Kei makes a face that hopefully conveys a violent threat, but Yamaguchi knows full well that he wouldn’t hurt a fly, so he’s undeterred.

He wants to say something, _anything,_ that’ll refute Yamaguchi’s suspicions, that’ll take that knowing leer off of him and make his friend leave him alone. But he can’t think of anything that isn’t an outright lie, and even if he _did_ want to lie to him, he certainly can’t say anything when Shouyou is _still_ laying across his lap and chatting away with commentary that no one’s actually listening to.

The only other possibility he can think of is lying by omission, which isn’t exactly _ideal_ because he hates lying, but it’s better than suffering under Yamaguchi’s relentless gaze. He can’t tell Yamaguchi, not yet (hopefully not ever), because he knows what will follow. A ruthless “I knew it!” and endless days of teasing and unsubtle attempts at matchmaking “because I want you to be happy, Tsukki!”

Hell no. He would rather die.

So. Lies by omission. That’s the best way to go. He sends a silent apology Yamaguchi’s way (but really, it’s _Yamaguchi’s_ fault for being so insufferable in the first place), then turns back around, pointedly ignoring him for the rest of the game.

“The rest of the game” is actually just one more rally, and Seijoh takes it spectacularly with a stupidly hard-hitting quick from their ace. As much as Kei doesn’t like Aoba Johsai, he can’t pretend that their team isn’t impressive, and that unfortunately includes the grand king, who’s made perfect tosses the whole game without any indication of wavering.

It’s sickening how perfect he is. He reminds Kei of Kageyama (because of course he does), and that alone is proof enough that Oikawa would be a terrible person to interact with. He feels sorry for his teammates.

The match ends with frustrated growls from the more excitable members of Date Tech’s team and a hearty celebration from Seijoh (Oikawa, naturally, is the loudest and most obnoxious one of the bunch). The fans in the stands cheer loudly for the good game, and they shake hands and part ways and clear the court for the next match. And it’s done.

“I didn’t really want to play against Seijoh,” Sugawara complains as he stands up, stretching his arms above his head.

“You’re not even the one who has to play,” Azumane retorts, his eyebrows pinched as he follows Sugawara out of the gym. The rest of them follow suit, various levels of frowns pulling at their faces.

“I might!” Sugawara crows indignantly. “Just you wait; I’ll be on the court in no time!” His frown changes into a determined smirk, and he punches the air for good measure.

Sawamura grins widely, and Kei can almost feel the way the pressure is taken off the third years. “I’ll look forward to it.”

Kei admires it almost, the way the third years are able to lift each other up and balance out their insecurities and doubts. They fit together well, and Kei wonders if it’ll become like that for him too, when they’re older and they’ve become better friends. He wonders if he’ll have the same relationship with Yamaguchi and Shouyou that Sawamura, Sugawara, and Azumane all have with each other. He wonders if Kageyama will be included in that.

They leave the gym, laughing together as Sugawara insists on his importance to the team both as a player and a “team mom” (dubbed by Sawamura), and are quickly joined by the second years who had been huddled up a little further down the bleachers, closer to their managers.

“Man,” Tanaka complains, drawing out the syllable, “I am _not_ looking forward to this next match.”

“What are you talking about?” Nishinoya says, his head lifted confidently. “We finally get to show off our new moves!”

“Don’t go whimping out on us,” Ennoshita scolds, slapping Tanaka on the back as he passes him, walking on ahead of the rest of the team.

“I’m not whimping out,” Tanaka protests, slumping his shoulders in defeat. Sugawara pats his back encouragingly but doesn’t offer any words to cheer him up.

They can barely make it down the hall, though, before the Date Tech regulars come around a corner and approach them from the opposite direction. Most of their faces are long and drawn, dejected from their loss.

Kei catches the eye, somehow, of their massive number seven Aone, and Kei is once again reminded of just how small he is. When they played each other last time, it had been in his own body. The middle blocker had been big, sure, but nothing to sneeze at. But now Kei has to look up and up (and up and up) to be able to see his face, and he’s so much bigger and so much larger than Kei is right now, and it’s almost _terrifying_ to witness.

He wonders how Shouyou has been able to deal with this so casually, so regularly, without croaking.

Then Aone breaks off from his team and walks straight up to him, getting bigger and bigger with every step. Kei feels smaller and smaller the more he has to crane his neck upwards, and then his shadow engulfs him and he feels infinitesimal, a bug under a foot.

“I’ll defeat you next time,” Aone says in a deep voice, too deep for the average high schooler, as he stares down at Kei with an intensity that rivals Shouyou’s. Kei swallows involuntarily.

“Good luck, then,” he manages to stammer out, and Aone nods, walking away as quickly as he’d come. Kei watches him down the hall until he disappears behind a corner, and then he watches as Date Tech’s other regulars scurry after him, and only then does he allow himself to breathe.

When he looks back at his own teammates, they’re watching him curiously, with either wide eyes or tiny smiles, surprised that Date Tech’s iron wall thinks so highly of him (of Shouyou) and amused that the silent giant seems to have befriended him. His gaze lingers on Shouyou, whose nose is wrinkled and his front teeth are biting into his lip as if he’s physically restraining himself from some (probably embarrassing) outburst. He’s not looking at Kei, but rather where the Date Tech players had disappeared off to, and Kei wonders if maybe he wanted to be the one to challenge their Aone.

But that can’t be helped, since no one else knows about their situation. He’ll send some kind of heartfelt apology Shouyou’s way later, and Shouyou will accept it and move on because he’s simple-minded and has no idea how to hold a grudge. Besides, it’s not like he’ll never be able to challenge Date Tech again. They’ll return to their own bodies eventually, and they still have two years left of high school. The time will come around again.

“You seem pretty friendly with Date Tech’s middle blocker,” Sugawara observes, face alight with mischief. “You made a pretty good impression on him at the Fall Interhigh Prelims, didn’t you?”

Kei nods because he has no idea what else to do. He wasn’t Shouyou then. He was barely paying attention to the shrimp then.

“He has that kind of effect on people, doesn’t he?” Sawamura observes as if he’s talking about a scientific specimen and not his teammate who’s standing right in front of him. “People are always impressed with his motivation and talent.”

“I’m right here,” Kei grits out, glaring up at them through his lashes.

“But it’s a good thing!” Azumane insists, directing his attention toward Kei too. “We’re lucky to have you on our team, is what Daichi is saying.”

“Is that it,” Kei says in a monotone.

Yamaguchi nods. “Definitely! You’re our star player, Hinata!” He’s safely behind the second and third years, and so he gives a conspicuous wink toward Shouyou, who beams at the praise and puffs out his chest.

Tanaka nods, unaware of the scene behind him. “You’re our super awesome decoy, after all!” He laughs loudly, and Nishinoya gives Kei a thumbs up beside him.

Kageyama, who had been awkwardly lagging behind them, huffs quietly (not quietly enough for Kei to ignore), and when Kei looks at him he sees the way his arms are folded over his chest, his chin turned down in a pout as he refuses to meet anyone’s eyes. He looks like a child who was refused ice cream, or perhaps a child who’s trying to solve a particularly difficult sudoku puzzle and failing miserably. Either way, he looks like a child.

But that’s not Kei’s problem, and so he turns his attention back to the rest of his team with a tiny scoff. “Yeah, yeah, thanks guys.” He starts walking again, leaving behind his other teammates who have to scramble to catch up to him. Kei ignores them and just keeps going because he’s not gotten used to being treated like Shouyou and he doesn’t think he’ll ever be quite okay with it. It’s embarrassing in some ways, uncomfortable in others, and downright weird in every other. And it’s disquieting, too, to see him receive the praise that _should_ be reserved for Shouyou to bask in. He doesn’t deserve to be praised for accomplishments he’s never achieved. He’s stealing Shouyou’s spotlight, and that bothers him.

He has it bad. He has it so bad. He hates this and he wants nothing more than to run away, or block out the thoughts and feelings, _something_ that can get him away from this thing between them.

But of course, he can’t. He’s stuck with Shouyou for as long as he _is_ Shouyou. He can’t just run away and change his name and start a new life, not when he’s stuck inside a body that doesn’t belong to him.

So instead, he has to deal with the—the crush. That’s what it is, isn’t it? A crush. A _crush_.

He decides that saying it six different ways inside his head doesn’t make the impact any less shocking. It does, however, solidify the feelings, bringing it into a reality that he can comprehend, and that alone has Kei’s world spinning around him and his lunch threatening to upchuck.

He feels an arm slip around his and drag him forcefully to a stop, and the spot where skin touches skin tingles. He looks up and sees Shouyou staring down at him, his lips pursed and pulled to the side of his face as he chews on the inside flesh of his cheek. “Slow down!” he says, finally dropping Kei’s arm when he’s certain he won’t sprint away. “Wait for the rest of us.”

“Uh, sorry,” he says awkwardly, focusing way too much on the way his arm is _still_ tingling even after Shouyou’s dropped it. “I’m just excited for the game.” It’s a lie, but it sounds like a damn good one, especially coming from Shouyou’s mouth.

Even Shouyou seems to believe it. He licks his lips and sucks in an anticipatory breath and leans in so close his form turns a little blurry. “You are? That’s a first!” Even the dig he makes at Kei’s expense is light-hearted and jovial, punctuated with a soft chuckle that sounds more like a squeal than anything. Kei is almost embarrassed at having to listen to _his body_ make that kind of noise.

“Yeah, sure,” he says, trying to ignore the closeness of them both, how he can feel Shouyou’s breath as he bends down, how he could just reach out right now and grab his hands, how—

No, nope, no way. He’s still not doing this. He let himself accept the realization, and that’s enough for right now. It’s more pressing to focus on the game because if he’s distracted while playing against Aoba Johsai, there’s absolutely no way they’re going to win. He has to perform the role of decoy and help his team claim victory. He has to take Karasuno to nationals. He has to take _Shouyou_ to nationals.

He can’t do that if he’s too busy thinking about Shouyou’s hands or his voice or his lips or—

Well… He just can’t.

“Let’s get to the gym,” he says, clearing his throat of the knot that formed there at some point. He grabs Shouyou’s wrist, _carefully_ avoiding his hand, and tugs gently, leading him forward. Shouyou comes along willingly, and he even surpasses Kei’s pace, bounding ahead so quickly that he breaks contact with him and goes off on his own toward the gym where Aoba Johsai is probably already waiting for them.

He sighs when Shouyou’s far enough away that he won’t hear it. Then there’s a tap on his shoulder and he jerks, startled by the sudden presence behind him.

“Whoa, didn’t mean to scare you, Hinata,” Yamaguchi says with a wry smile and two hands held up defensively. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Kei grumbles, and he knows full well that it’s nowhere near convincing.

Yamaguchi just hums and passes him, too, giving one final, sidelong glance that says he knows _way_ more than he’s saying out loud. It pisses him off.

He doesn’t have enough time to simmer in it, though, because he meets up with Coach Ukai, Takeda, Kiyoko, and Yachi in front of the gym, all stony faced and determined about the upcoming match. Yamaguchi and Shouyou are there, too, both standing a little too close to each other. Shouyou keeps glancing behind him at the doors to the gym, and Yamaguchi is staring at Kei, piercing through him like gamma radiation.

“Are you guys ready?” Ukai asks with a loud clap, drawing all of their attention. Good, this is good. If he’s thinking about volleyball, he can’t be thinking about Shouyou. It’s perfect. It worked during the Wakunan match, and it’ll work here. He has nothing to worry about.

The team rings out with a loud, collective shout of “yes!” and Ukai’s face shifts into a smirk, his eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Remember, this is one more step toward nationals,” he says, and Kei can instantly feel the hum of excitement shoot throughout the team. “One more step toward the battle at the trash heap.”

Another cry of “yes!” has them barging through the doors to meet Seijoh head on. They walk into the gym with heads held high, demanding attention from everyone in the room, from the onlookers in the stands to the referees to the very players they’re about to face off against.

Kei finds Oikawa in the crowd easily. He’s the only one _not_ looking at them, too busy chatting up their stony-faced ace to pay them any attention. It irks Kei, and he finds himself scowling in his direction, but he supposes he shouldn’t have expected anything different from that guy. He’s too vain, too full of himself, to respect his opponents. He’s only interested in squashing them like bugs, and so it makes sense that he’d look down on them.

Kei intends to wipe that perpetual smirk off his face.

And he knows that beside him, Shouyou is thinking the same thing. He’s overly conscious of the way Shouyou is clenching and unclenching his fists at his sides, the way he’s vibrating with anticipation, the way he walks with a purpose that aims to totally dominate, to crush his enemies the same way Oikawa plans to do to them. It’s almost inspiring in a way, and Kei thinks he might be taken aback by the intensity of Shouyou’s hubris if he hadn’t grown so accustomed to it by being around him nonstop since the year started.

“Are you ready?” he asks in a low voice, mumbling it under his breath. He doesn’t expect Shouyou to even hear him, much less answer him, and so he’s shocked when Shouyou turns to him with fiery eyes and a toothy grin.

“I’m ready!” he says in an equally low voice meant only for him, but it carries a strength and determination he’s still not used to hearing in _his voice_. It makes Kei’s heart flutter, his stomach flip, and most of all, it makes him want to win.


	13. step 13. monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _From: kageyama (￣︿￣)_  
>  Subject: Re: Re: what.  
> you didn’t answer my question 
> 
> _To: kageyama (￣︿￣)_  
>  Subject: Re: Re: Re: what.  
> i’m aware. 

The night before the Shiratorizawa match is the worst for several reasons, and only one of them is due to the fact that they’re going up against Shiratorizawa, and with it, Ushiwaka.

_From: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: good game!!!!!!!!!!!! \\(★ω★)/_ _  
_ _you played so well today kei!!! you were all POW and WHAM and your spikes were so good!! wakunan seijoh and the grand king had no idea what was coming!!!!_

What’s more pressing, Kei finds, is that he’s still in the middle of a romantic crisis that he has no idea how to deal with, and he’s completely certain that he does not want to deal with it at all.

_From: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: GWAH!!!!!!!!!!!!_ _  
_ _you’re gonna do GREAT against ushiwaka tomorrow too!!_

Kei doesn’t bother hiding the way his face heats up at the compliments and the encouragement because he’s alone in his room and no one can see him, anyway. But it doesn’t make him feel any better about it, and he hates that something as simple as an email can make his heart flutter and his cheeks burn.

Really, if he could just erase these thoughts from his mind, or push them to the back of his head and never think about them again, that might be the best course of action.

_To: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: Re: GWAH!!!!!!!!!!!!_ _  
_ _thanks, you’ll be good too. as long as you don’t trip over your feet again, lol_

_From: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: GWAH!!!!!!!!!!!!_ _  
_ _i will not trip over my feet!!!!!! ( `ε´ ) you’re just mean!_

_From: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: GWAH!!!!!!!!!!!!_ _  
_ _i won’t lose tomorrow! i’m going to do my best too!_

_To: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: Re: GWAH!!!!!!!!!!!!_ _  
_ _we’re on the same team, stupid_

_From: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: GWAH!!!!!!!!!!!!_ _  
_ _i know that!!!!!!!! ヾ(￣◇￣)ノ〃 go karasuno!_

But instead the thoughts, these unfortunate, sappy, stupid emotions keep circling around in his head, playing over and over and over until Kei is dizzy and he thinks he’ll pass out. Talking to Shouyou is doing nothing to help him calm down, either, and at this point he’s pretty sure his heart is going to leap out of his throat.

_To: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: GWAH!!!!!!!!!!!!_ _  
_ _go karasuno_

_From: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: stingyshima!_ _  
_ _say it like you mean it!!!!!!!! ヾ(`ヘ´)ﾉﾞ_

_To: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: Re: stingyshima!_ _  
_ _go karasuno!!! ☆*:.｡.o(≧▽≦)o.｡.:*☆_

_To: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: Re: stingyshima!_ _  
_ _like that? lmao_

_From: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: stingyshima!_ _  
_ _yes! exactly! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°_

Playing against Wakunan and Seijoh was one thing. He was able to block out the thoughts because he was too busy running and jumping and playing decoy. The crowd’s cheers deafened his worries and his feelings. His anxiety toward the game left him unable to comprehend anything but the ball in front of him, the players around him. Coach Ukai’s shouting replaced any of his own confused whispers, and everything was just fine and dandy.

But now.

Now he doesn’t have that safety net. Now he has to sit alone in his room with nothing to drown out the emotions and the visions and the floods of fantasies that he hasn’t been paying nearly enough attention to until today.

_From: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: good night!_ _  
_ _i’m gonna sleep now! or i’ll try to at least (lol) i wanna be well rested when we go up against ushiwaka !!(ﾒ￣ ￣)_θ☆°0°)/ you sleep too!!! (x . x) ~~zzzzzzzzzzzz_

_To: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: Re: good night!_ _  
_ _yeah, i will. sleep well_

_To: tsukishima (╬ Ò﹏Ó)_ __  
_Subject: Re: good night!_ _  
_ _[(－－)]..zzZ_

This sucks.

He wants to call Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi is his best friend, his rock, the one person he can go to for anything. He’s helped Kei through everything, from minor breakdowns to full-blown crises, since they were in grade school, and he’s the one person Kei can always count on to be there.

But he saw those smug stares he was giving him today. He’s pieced everything together already. The sneaky bastard already _knew_ that he liked Shouyou, and so talking to him about it, _admitting_ that he likes him, would just confirm what he already knew. Kei would be admitting defeat, and Yamaguchi would counter with relentless, unbridled teasing. So no. He can’t go to Yamaguchi for this.

And now he’s alone in Shouyou’s house, with every little detail, from the sweat-stained laundry piled in the corner of the room to the volleyballs littering the floor, reminding him of the _one_ person he is desperately trying not to think about.

He nearly jumps out of his skin when he hears a knock on the door, and he has to stifle a shout before he wakes up Shouyou’s parents. He’s slow to pick himself up off the bed and even slower to make it to the front of the room and slide the door open, but when he does he finds himself looking down at Shouyou’s sister, Natsu.

“Shouyou?” Natsu says through a heavy yawn, stretching her arms high above her head. Without thinking about it, Kei leans down a little and ruffles her hair affectionately, and she smiles into the touch.

“What is it?” he asks gently, more gently, he thinks, than he’s ever been with anyone. Natsu doesn’t deserve Kei’s hard edges and gruff mannerisms. She’s never done anything to him to set him off, and instead she’s welcomed him into her home with a wide grin and open arms. Besides, she’s just a kid, and Kei wants it to stay that way as long as possible.

So he smiles down at her, his fingers stroking lightly through her hair. And Natsu accepts all of it readily, taking everything Kei will give her. “I think there’s a monster under my bed,” she says, and now Kei can recognize her rigid posture, her hunched shoulders, her fingers fumbling with the hem of her night shirt.

“Then we should get rid of it,” Kei says with a note of finality, taking his hand off her head and grabbing hold of her wrist instead. Together they march down the hall and into Natsu’s room, where she promptly hides behind Kei. He wonders if she actually thinks her brother could be intimidating enough to scare off a monster, or if he’s just the biggest thing in the room right now and she has nowhere else to hide.

It’s probably the second one, but he can’t read minds.

He drops down onto the floor and crawls over to the bed, which is only a couple inches off the ground. If there’s a monster under there, it’s probably paper-thin and not a threat at all. He wouldn’t tell Natsu that, though, because that won’t change anything.

He presses his face into the floor and squints into the darkness under the bed, glancing around at the emptiness beneath. He ignores Natsu’s frightened squeal and the way she clings onto his shirt as if he’ll be sucked under, eaten by the dreadful creature that resides there.

He only spends a few moments there before he decides that he’s wasted a believable amount of time. “It’s not there. Maybe it found a new hiding place,” he says, shuffling back onto his hands and knees away from the bed. “Or maybe my face was too scary and it ran away.”

It’s a lie, Kei thinks, and it takes all his effort not to cringe when he says it. He doesn’t dislike Shouyou’s face at all, and insinuating otherwise even as a joke goes against all the thoughts circling around in his head, all the hot blood pounding in his veins.

“Are you sure?” Natsu says, her voice wavering as she peeks behind Kei to look at her bed, as if at any moment a monster will emerge from below and devour them both in one fell swoop.

But Kei nods firm and definite. “It’s gone. It must have seen me and took off. It probably knew it wouldn’t be pretty if it hung around.”

Natsu giggles at that. “You’re not even that scary, Shouyou.”

“I can be scary if I want to be!” Not a lie, technically. Kei can be scary. It’s the _real_ Shouyou who has a hard time looking intimidating (unless he’s pulling out that terrifying determination that can rattle bones and fell kings). “That monster could sense my bloodlust.” He puts up his fists and punches the air lightly to illustrate his point.

“Thank you,” she says, still giggling even when she runs at him and topples him to the ground in a tight hug, knocking the wind out of him. “I didn’t want to wake mom and dad.”

“You can always come to me for monster-related problems,” Kei says, sitting up and pushing her gently off of him so he can breathe again. He pauses for a moment, wondering if he should continue. He decides that it can’t hurt. “When I was really young, I had monsters under my bed all the time, too. But one birthday I got some dinosaur figurines, and I put them in my room. They were mean and scary enough to scare away all the monsters for good!”

He remembers the birthday when he unwrapped several toy dinosaurs, a gift from Akiteru. He’d liked the toys so much that he never bothered to get rid of them, a fact which he’s faced with every time he enters his own room. And it’s a fact he’s reminded of when he looks for his dinosaurs for comfort now, only to find them missing in the room that isn’t his.

But he shakes his head free of those somber thoughts and focuses on the here and now, on Natsu. She looks mesmerized, as if she couldn’t ever have thought that getting rid of monsters would be so easy.

“I want some dinosaurs too!” she announces, bouncing a little in her seat. “Then they can fight the monsters!”

“They do a pretty good job of it,” Kei agrees. “Most toys are happy to assist in monster busting, but my favorites are dinosaurs.”

“Have you ever seen a real life dinosaur?” Natsu asks, her eyes wide and excited as she clamps her hands over her cheeks. “Like a really big one?”

Kei shakes his head. “I’ve seen a lot in movies, and I went to a museum once, but all the really real ones aren’t around here.”

“Where are they?” she asks, as if she’s ready to pack up her things and start off on an expedition.

Kei doesn’t have the heart to tell her they’re all _dead_ , so he chooses the next best option. “They’re in Siberia.”

“Oh!” Natsu claps excitedly, then tilts her head to the side. She looks almost exactly like a smaller version of Shouyou, he thinks, or at least she would if Shouyou was properly in his own body. “Where’s that?”

“It’s in Russia,” he explains slowly, spinning the tall tale in his mind before the words make their way out of his mouth. “But it’s really cold in that part of the country, so it’s impossible for people like us to go there. You have to go through special training.”

“I’m gonna be a special dinosaur doctor when I grow up!” she announces, slapping her hands on Kei’s thighs.

“But—”

“You said they have to go through special training, right?” And Kei wants to argue, but he _did_ say that. “I’ll just have to go to university for it.”

“I don’t think they offer it as a major,” he mumbles under his breath. This is exactly the reason why he stays as far away from kids as he can. He can’t ever bear to crush their dreams and excitement, so he ends up sticking his own foot in his mouth when they find a way around the stories he tells them to placate them. It’s like a never-ending descent further into hell that never lets up and never gets easier.

Natsu just giggles again, leaning into him. “I’ll go to dinosaur school.”

“Good luck, then,” he says, no longer able to keep up the energy needed to argue with her. She’ll find out eventually that the dinosaurs are all dead and gone and she’ll blame him for ruining her life and that’ll just be how it goes. Such is life.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Natsu asks, turning her attention away from her own future plans back to Kei.

“An… an archaeologist,” he mumbles, hoping and praying that Natsu won’t question him further. He doesn’t want to be the one to both bring up her hopes and then subsequently _crush them mercilessly_ within the same conversation. There should be at least a little buffer between wanting to go to dinosaur school and learning that every single dinosaur was murdered by a stray comet sixty-six million years ago.

“What’s that? An archie… archiogolist?” she says, twisting up her face as she tries to form the word on her tongue.

“Archaeologist,” he corrects her softly, saying it slow enough that she can catch each syllable. “It’s a person who studies the past.”

“Oh, I know what that is! They dig up bones!” Natsu exclaims, and Kei thinks he’s _almost_ let off the hook. “Do you wanna make skeletons?”

“Something like that,” he says, and it’s not a lie. He doesn’t elaborate and say he wants to look at dinosaur bones because that will lead into a whole new set of questions that he doesn’t want to answer in the slightest, absolutely not.

“That’s so cool!” she says, a wide smile on her face. She shifts from side to side as she gets antsy, her fingers threading together to let loose some of her energy. That kind of natural energy must run in the family.

Kei smiles because he’s never seen that kind of enthusiasm from anyone but Akiteru when he talks about his future plans. It gives him a sense of comfort, a sense of home, that he hasn’t felt in a long time, since even before he had switched bodies with Shouyou. It’s a nice feeling, and Kei wants to revel in it.

But the clock is ticking and it’s late at night and Natsu’s eyes are drooping low, and Kei shouldn’t keep her up for his own selfish reasons. “You should get to bed,” he tells her, patting her head softly as he stands up, then offers his hand out for her to take.

When she’s standing, so much shorter than even he is, he leads her to the bed and tucks her in, pulling the blankets up high around her chin.

He’s never had a little sibling before, and he’s never much wanted one. But he sort of understands now the way Akiteru looks at him sometimes, with smiles filled to the brim with affection and love. He understands the way he talks to Kei with so much care, like he’s fragile and close to breaking and he has to do everything in his power to hold him together, to be the glue that binds him.

It’s nice, in a way, to be the older brother for once.

He’s filled with longing for his own brother, and there’s a pain in his chest that wants Akiteru to come home from college, to visit him and smile at him again.

He’s jealous of Shouyou and the fact that he gets to practice with _his_ brother on the weekends, gets to see him and play with him and be the younger brother.

“Good night,” Natsu says, puckering up her lips for a good night kiss. Kei obliges and leans down, pressing his cheek into her lips so she can smack them, wet and slobbery and adorable.

“Sleep well,” he responds, and with a final stroke of her hair, he leaves her room.

Being the older brother, though, isn’t quite so bad, he thinks.

He misses Akiteru, but Natsu’s a good way to fill that hole. Even if he were in his own body, in his own home, Akiteru would still be gone, and he would still be alone. This is a good compromise, he supposes.

It doesn’t quell the jealousy he feels toward Shouyou, but those thoughts are quickly drowned out with the emotions he’d so dutifully shoved down during his conversation with Natsu. She did a good job at blocking them out, but as soon as he’d remembered that Shouyou exists, the dam broke and they came back, flooding his senses with memories and reveries and he finds himself lost in thought once more by the time he makes it safely back to his room.

“I’m screwed,” he says out loud to drown out the memory of Shouyou’s laugh, flopping onto the bed haphazardly.

He likes Shouyou.

Like. He _like_ -likes Shouyou. How did that even happen? What choices has he made that led him to this point in his life? There’s a small part of him that just wants to deny everything, pretend this crush doesn’t exist, that it’s just some dumb freak accident and it’ll settle and disappear by tomorrow morning. But, well, that’s what he’d said the first night he switched places with Shouyou, and here he is, a month later.

And he still has no idea what to do about any of it.

Then, like some ridiculously well-planned deus ex machina, Kei is jerked from his spiral into horrible, lovesick anxiety by the buzz of his phone. He picks his head up out of the pillow far enough to see the white screen glaring at him in the dim light of his bedroom, but he can’t make out the name on the caller ID. Not being able to see the name means that he can’t bury his head back in his pillow and continue wallowing in his misfortune, so he huffs out a sigh and pushes himself onto his elbows, dragging one leg underneath him so it’s closer to a sitting position.

He grabs his phone and sighs dramatically when he reads the name on the screen even though no one can hear his histrionics, deliberating whether or not he should throw his phone back down or answer the email. But he decides he’d rather not deal with an angry Kageyama tomorrow when they’re playing against Shiratorizawa, so he flips open the phone and reads the message.

_From: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: you okay?_ _  
_ _are you still mad :/_

He runs his hand down his face and groans. He supposes Shouyou wouldn’t mind having this conversation, since he’s always pouring his heart out to anyone who’ll listen (or even to anyone who has no intention of listening), but Kei hates confrontation and he doesn’t want to do this right now, not when he could be doing much more productive things, like drowning in his emotions.

But he’s already looked at the message, already resolved to handle it so the king won’t be distracted and angry tomorrow. They have to have him in tip-top shape for the match, which unfortunately means dealing with this bullshit right now.

_To: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: Re: you okay?_ _  
_ _i’m not mad_

There. That should do it. A masterfully crafted message, if he does say so himself. Simple, concise, to the point. It leaves no room for argument, and it’s short enough that Kei doesn’t have to ponder about any excess.

The reply he gets, though, isn’t one he was expecting.

_From: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: you okay?_ _  
_ _you’re obviously mad, dumbass. why are you being so pissy about tsukishima anyway??? he’s an asshole._

Kei gets that feeling that he’s eavesdropping on a conversation he’s not meant to be listening to again, and he shifts around on the bed, dropping onto his stomach before sending the next message.

_To: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: i’m fine_ _  
_ _i’m not mad, and tsukishima isn’t an asshole. I told you that earlier._

He feels almost arrogant and vain to insist that he’s not an asshole, especially when he knows he _is,_ but he also feels compelled to defend Shouyou’s honor, even if no one else knows it’s _Shouyou_ he’s defending. Naturally, and disgustingly, his feelings toward Shouyou outweigh his discomfort. He sends the message and prays to the gods that Kageyama never learns about this body swap, or at least if he does, that he doesn’t remember this conversation and the vehement way he’s defending his own rotten personality (even if technically, he’s not).

_From: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: Re: i’m fine_ _  
_ _then you’re sick, or dying maybe. since when do you even care about tsukishima enough to defend him? he’s made both of us miserable since we started high school, and now you’re going all gaga over him. It’s gross, cut it out. :/_

Kei groans loudly, dropping his phone in favor of clenching his fists in his hair and pulling hard. First Yamaguchi, now Kageyama. Is it _really_ that obvious? He hates that he was apparently the last person to find out about his _own_ feelings.

_To: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: stop_ _  
_ _i’m not going all “gaga” over him, you’re just being rude. if you’ve paid any amount of attention to him instead of basing his actions on your preconceptions, you’d see he’s been changing. he’s not nearly as much of an asshole anymore._

_From: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: what._ __  
_first, i don’t know what “preconception” means_ _  
_ _second, are you sure you’re not sick? this is ridiculous. why are you even defending him_

_To: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: Re: what._ _  
_ _preconception- an opinion that you form before getting adequate knowledge about something_

_From: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: what._ _  
_ _you didn’t answer my question_

_To: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: Re: what._ _  
_ _i’m aware._

He’s avoiding the question because he’s sure that if he’s pressed any further, he won’t have a good enough excuse and terrible, terrible things will spill out. And that absolutely cannot happen. Nope. No way.

_From: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: answer me_ _  
_ _you’re hiding something from me. i want to know what it is. if you don’t tell someone you’re going to be frazzled during the match tomorrow, and since we’re best friends it might as well be me. right??????_

_To: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: Re: answer me_ _  
_ _i don’t want to._

_From: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: answer me_ _  
_ _are you really that mad at me???? ( >_<)_

Nope. Nuh-uh. This cannot be happening. Did Kageyama really use a _kaomoji?_ Is he talking to the right Kageyama?

_To: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: fine…_ _  
_ _you can’t laugh at me._

_From: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject: Re: fine…_ _  
_ _why would i laugh at you :/_

Kei sends a silent prayer to the gods and curses himself for going against everything he stands for.

_To: kageyama (￣︿￣)_ __  
_Subject:_ _  
_ _i like tsukishima._

Kei holds his breath after he hits “send” and waits for a response. When he doesn’t get one and his face is turning blue from the lack of oxygen, he releases his breath and wheezes a little, his heart speeding up as it compensates for his lungs and for his panic attack.

He really just did that. There’s no way to take it back. He can’t just delete the message and pretend it never happened. This is it. This is where he dies.

He’s so far gone that he doesn’t hear his phone until the second round of the chirpy, happy ringtone. He doesn’t even bother checking the caller ID and just presses it against his face instead. He can’t even manage a hello.

“You _like_ Tsukishima?” Kageyama’s voice is tinny over the phone line, but it shocks Kei back into reality.

“What?” he says brilliantly.

“Are you an idiot?” he asks, more forcefully this time.

“Apparently so…” Kei mumbles, and Kageyama grunts from the other side of the line.

“Why?” he asks, loudly enough that Kei has to move the phone away from his face to avoid damage to his ear. “Why him? He’s not even good looking!”

_Gee, thanks,_ he wants to say, but he bites it back because their _one rule_ was to not let anyone find out they’ve switched bodies. He’s so close to breaking it now, though. So painfully close.

“I don’t know!” he shouts instead, only lowering his voice at the last second to avoid waking up his family. “Why did you even call me?”

“Because my best friend is a dumbass!” Kageyama growls over the phone, and Kei can imagine a deep, angry scowl on his face. It doesn’t look much different from his usual scowl, but it’s all about the nuance. Shouyou’s got it down pat. Kei, though, is still learning.

“I know that!” And he does, because really, what was he thinking, falling for someone like Shouyou? Falling for _anyone_ in this situation? Falling for someone who looks like himself? This is all a huge, big mess, and there’s absolutely no sense to it at all. But it’s not like he can help it. “I just… I don’t know what to do. I didn’t even want to tell you.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” Kageyama says, and it almost sounds like he’s gagging a little. “That’s gross.”

“It’s not gross,” Kei shoots back, and he doesn’t really know why he’s even defending this at all. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. There’s no logic behind any of this. Why is he even talking to _Kageyama_ of all people? They don’t even like each other.

(Well, Kageyama has no idea that he’s talking to Kei and not Shouyou, but that’s besides the point.)

There’s a sigh on the other end. “What’s so good about him anyway?”

He hesitates because he has no idea what he’s supposed to say to that. Is he supposed to list his own qualities that _might_ be something less than atrocious? Or should he be honest and say what he really does like about Shouyou? Would Kageyama even be able to tell the difference? He doesn’t know.

(He doesn’t know a lot of things, and that pisses him off.)

“He’s… nice,” Kei starts, slowly and timidly, as he works the words in his mind, in his mouth. “He won’t leave me alone, and he makes me feel… special, I guess. He—he’s cute.” He hopes that it’s vague enough that Kageyama won’t catch on that something’s not quite right with his description.

Apparently, though, he doesn’t have to worry, because Kageyama grunts and makes a retching noise. “That’s _way_ too much information. Don’t say weird stuff like that.”

“You asked!” Kei retorts defiantly, pushing himself up on his bed so he can lean forward with his emotions. “I’m just answering your question!”

“I regret asking,” Kageyama says, and it comes out breathy and choppy, like he’s physically holding himself back from vomiting. “This is terrible. You owe me a carton of milk tomorrow.”

“What?” Kei scoffs, folding his free arm over his chest. “This is your fault.”

“You’re the one with all the sappy gooey romance feelings!” Kageyama practically shouts, but Kei can sense that he’s also trying to keep his voice down so late at night. “It’s your fault!”

“I can’t help that!” Kei says, throwing his arm wide. “I don’t want them, anyway!”

“Then get rid of them!” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing to do.

“It’s really not that easy!”

“Why not?” His voice sounds more frustrated and confused than anything, like he’s working through a puzzle he can’t figure out.

“These feelings don’t exactly go away that easy!” Kei groans, falling back onto the bed.

“They should!” Kageyama shouts again, his voice barely constrained this time. “I don’t want to hear about this anymore, it’s grossing me out.”

“You asked me first!” Kei says, grabbing fistfuls of hair and tugging hard. “What was I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know, something along the lines of, ‘yes Kageyama, well, I know you wanted me to tell you what’s wrong, but seeing as you’re romance-repulsed and aroace, I’m gonna leave you alone because I care about your well-being. But don’t worry, I’ll definitely be in tip-top shape for tomorrow’s match against Shiratorizawa.’” The voice Kageyama adopts to mimic Shouyou is almost hilarious, and if he wasn’t doing it to mock _Kei_ this time, he’d be laughing loudly, joining in on the fun. Instead, he grits his teeth and clenches his phone tighter.

“I didn’t know any of that,” Kei says slowly.

“You forgot again? You really are a dumbass,” Kageyama says, and Kei can almost _feel_ the roll of his eyes. “Whatever, but if you talk about this again, you’re buying me another carton of milk. You owe me two already for the emotional turmoil that you put me through tonight.”

Kei wants to scream. “I don’t have anyone else I can talk to about it.” He hates how small his voice sounds, but really, he _doesn’t_ have anyone else he can turn to. He only has two other friends, and he can’t tell either of them. Shouyou is… no, absolutely not, and Yamaguchi would hold it over his head for the next millennium. And he can’t talk to his mom or Akiteru because he’s not even living at his house. And _Shouyou’s_ parents would be way too awkward to talk to, and Natsu’s too young to understand anything about romance anyway.

There’s a sinking in his stomach when he realizes that no, he wasn’t exaggerating, and yes, Kageyama _is_ the only person he can talk to about this.

Maybe it would be better to keep it to himself.

“You’re going to be buying me a lot of milk, then,” Kageyama says in a monotone.

For some awful, stomach-churning reason, he perks up. And then he asks, and immediately regrets asking, “Does that mean I can, uh, I can talk to you?” He’s not entirely sure if this is what he wants, if he even wants to tell anyone _anything_ about this crush, but somehow it’s reassuring to have someone to talk to who’s completely unaware of the body swap situation.

“Of course you can,” Kageyama snaps, as if he wasn’t just gagging and retching over the phone lines. “But if you talk about kissing him I’ll throw you across the room.”

Kei wrinkles up his nose, and it’s his turn to pretend gag. “I’d rather die than talk about that with you.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.” There’s a note of finality in his tone, and Kei supposes that’s that.

“Uh…” he starts, because he’s not entirely sure where to go from here. “Thanks.”

“Of course. We’re friends, right?”

He’s never considered Kageyama a friend before. And Kageyama probably still wouldn’t consider them friends, if he knew anything about the body swap. He can infer enough from the way Kageyama talks about him. But Kageyama considers Shouyou a friend (which, honestly, is kind of shocking, considering the way they interact with each other during practice), and Kei _is_ Shouyou, and well. It’s not nearly as bad as he thought it would be, and he’s kind of grateful for that.

When he gets back to his own body, maybe he’ll make an attempt to be nicer to the king.

(That’s a filthy, filthy lie, but it’s not like he’s making any attempts to be nicer to Shouyou, either, and he actually _likes_ that guy. It’s a nice thought, though.)

“Yeah, we’re friends,” Kei says after a moment, and it feels _almost_ natural. Not quite. He has to imagine Yamaguchi on the other end of the line for a moment instead of Kageyama. At least it sounds good enough.

“Are you going to be okay for tomorrow’s match, or are you going to be too busy staring at Tsukishima’s ass?”

“What?” Kei shouts, startled, nearly dropping his phone from the sudden jolt that runs through him. “I’m—I will _not_ be staring at his ass! I—”

Kageyama hums like he doesn’t believe him. “It’s a serious question. That’s what you people do when you like each other, right? I’m not judging.” Kei can almost see him shrugging.

“You’re being an asshole, that’s what you’re doing,” he snarls.

“But I’m still not judging.”

“I take it back; we’re not friends anymore.” He closes his eyes and leans his head back, stifling a long groan.

“Wait, no,” Kageyama says in a rush. “You don’t mean that. You didn’t mean that, right?”

“Huh?” Then Kei remembers that he’s not bantering with Yamaguchi or Shouyou, who can take his sarcasm and feed it right back to him. “No, I didn’t mean that.”

Kageyama sighs in relief. “Good.”

“I wasn’t being serious.” He never is.

“Well, I was just checking!” He sounds indignant, like he’s verbally puffing up his chest and readying his fists for a fight.

Kei shakes his head and doesn’t hide his smile because there’s no one around to see it, anyway. “Yeah, yeah. You’re fine. But really, I’ll be fine tomorrow. Probably.”

“Okay, good. Don’t go, like, short-circuiting or anything because you saw Tsukishima take off his shirt. I’d probably vomit, and then I wouldn’t be able to play the game.”

Kei purses his lips and glares at no one in particular. “You’re worse than Tsukishima.” He can’t exactly tell if he’s talking about Shouyou or himself here, but he dismisses that thought because it doesn’t matter; they’re both pretty bad.

“How dare you compare me to him.” Kei can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not. Then again, Kei is pretty sure Kageyama doesn’t actually know what sarcasm is, considering that’s what’s put the biggest dent in their relationship.

But Kei just laughs, and it sounds good-natured and hearty in spite of himself. He’s not exactly sure where _that_ came from, but he’s not sure where any of his recent feelings came from, either. Everything feels new and different to him, and he’s not sure if he likes it or not.

“Are you laughing at me, dumbass?” Kageyama growls.

“No! No, I’m—” He cuts himself off to laugh again. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Kageyama huffs audibly through the phone. “You better play your best tomorrow. You were a little weird today during the Wakunan match.” He pauses for a moment. “You were better against Seijoh, though.”

“Huh? Was I playing bad?” He hadn’t noticed.

“You kept missing easy tosses, like we hadn’t been practicing our quicks. It was like before, right after the summer training camp.”

Well, yeah, when he puts it that way, he has a point. But in his defense, it wasn’t entirely his fault. He had _just_ realized his feelings only about thirty minutes prior to the Wakunan game, and he couldn’t stop thinking about it, letting his traitorous eyes wander to wherever Shouyou was standing at any given moment. But he hadn’t thought he was playing so badly that even _Kageyama_ would notice. Although, to be fair, Kageyama and Shouyou both have an uncanny ability to tell when someone is half-assing themselves on the court. Like some kind of third eye, specifically for volleyball. VSP (volleyball sensory perception).

“I’ll be fine tomorrow; don’t worry,” Kei assures him, hoping that he’s telling the truth. He can’t mess it up during the Shiratorizawa game, their ticket to nationals, not after he’s been working his ass off to learn Shouyou’s body, learn his role on the team. They have to all be playing their best tomorrow, and that unfortunately includes him. He can’t afford to be sidetracked by Shouyou, no matter how strong his feelings are.

“Good. You better be.” His last sentence is punctuated by a yawn and a groan that sounds like Kageyama is stretching, and Kei is grateful that the conversation is coming to an end. He may not hate Kageyama, and he may have just _technically_ called him a friend, but it’s still not as if he wants to spend more time with him than he has to. He’s still an annoying volleyball freak.

(So is Shouyou, his mind supplies unhelpfully, but he doesn’t seem to have a problem with him anymore.)

“We should sleep,” Kei says with a yawn of his own, exaggerated to emphasize his point. “We have a big day tomorrow, after all.”

“I bet I can get to sleep faster than you,” Kageyama says, not even bothering to agree with Kei first.

And Kei is _not_ Shouyou, he’s _not_ a weirdo, but _boy_ does he hate losing. He’s too quick to rise to someone else’s bait, and he accepts this as a personal flaw. He may not be Shouyou, but he’s still competitive as shit.

“You’re on,” he says, a little too much fire in his voice. He doesn’t even say goodbye or good night. He just hangs up the phone and tosses it onto his bed, flinging himself bodily into the pillow beside him. He knows full well that Kageyama has no way of knowing whether he’s sleeping or not, and he has no way of knowing the same about Kageyama. He knows full well that this “competition” is stupid and childish.

But right now, he’s acting as Shouyou, and sometimes it’s fun to be childish.

He runs his hands down his face and tries to block out his mind, tries to will away the swirling images of Shouyou in his head because he _can’t_ think about him right now. He can’t think about his soft hair or his intense eyes or his big, beautiful smile or his strong will.

But it’s kind of impossible when he’s stuck in the body of the person he likes, when he can feel that soft hair tickling his forehead, when he can feel the smooth skin under his T-shirt, when he can easily look in the mirror and see Shouyou staring back at him.

He can’t even try to replace the images of Shouyou with images of volleyball or Shiratorizawa, because he’s still _right there_ , on the court, jumping and spiking and smiling and cheering, so excited just to play a _game_ , to engage in something that doesn’t even matter in the long run.

It’s just a game, Kei thinks. But not to Shouyou. And Shouyou is so much more to Kei.

He wonders when he started associating volleyball with Shouyou, and when that changed his entire perception of the game itself. When he became more willing to put in effort, when he stopped telling himself that it doesn’t matter, when he started exerting more energy to run faster, jump higher, be _better_.

Maybe it started at the beginning of the year. Maybe he didn’t even realize it. Maybe that irritation he felt toward Shouyou was the precursor, a little niggling in his head that sparked change.

But that would mean he’s liked Shouyou for far longer than he’s willing to admit. He doesn’t even want to admit it now. So instead of pondering along that thought, he pulls the covers over his head and shoves the thoughts away, hoping for the darkness to give way to peaceful unconsciousness.

He definitely doesn’t win the competition, but because Kageyama has no way of knowing that, he has no intention of telling the truth.


	14. step 14. that moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He couldn’t help but think that maybe “that moment” wasn’t meant for him, that he was too far gone, too stubborn, too afraid to find it.
> 
> But—

Kei remembers in vivid detail the days in the third gym during the Fukurodani summer training camp. He remembers being coerced to join, then integrating himself (against his will) into the regular late-night practice with Kuroo and Bokuto and Akaashi. He remembers asking _why_ they were so passionate about volleyball, why they bothered putting in so much effort when they knew it would all just go away eventually. They would lose, they would graduate, they would move on.

He remembers Bokuto and Kuroo talking about “that moment” when they became obsessed with volleyball, and he remembers quirking an eyebrow just slightly, disbelieving the ridiculous idea that just _one_ moment could cause him to be hooked on something he’s spent his whole middle and high school career holding at arm’s length.

But Kuroo had found that moment. Bokuto had found that moment. Shouyou had those moments all the time, and Kei had the pleasure and the displeasure to watch as he fell deeper into volleyball mania with every game he played.

Still, he couldn’t help but think that maybe “that moment” wasn’t meant for him, that he was too far gone, too stubborn, too _afraid_ to find it.

But—

“Hinata!” Kageyama calls, and Kei is already running before the ball even touches the king’s hands. He’s in the air before the toss goes up. He’s spiking it past Shiratorizawa’s blockers before he even registers that the ball is in front of him. They take the set before either team’s cheer squad can react.

He lands on the court and the squeak of his volleyball shoes is drowned out by sudden screaming, and he’s not even sure he _lands_ on the ground before he’s lifted in the air and tossed around and Tanaka and Nishinoya are screaming in his ear, and then his hands are engulfed by a pair much larger than his and he’s jerked forward into a bone-crushing hug and he recognizes Shouyou’s cries of victory because he’d recognize it anywhere, even in a sea of noise.

“You did it!” Shouyou screeches, bouncing up and down and gripping Kei’s arms tightly.

“It was just a point,” Kei says by virtue of it being his nature, but he can’t help the flush that reddens his cheeks (exertion, he insists) and the smile that tugs at his lips.

“It was the point that won us the set!” Shouyou counters. “Look!” He points at the scoreboard where a referee is changing the score to reflect the new set.

“Yeah, it sure did,” Kei says, trying his best to downplay his accomplishment even as Shouyou continues gushing. It makes him feel a little gooey inside, and his stomach flutters and he feels _special_ in that moment, like it’s just him and Shouyou, alone in that moment.

“Did you feel it?” And suddenly, Shouyou’s staring at him with intense eyes that bore into his head, expecting something that Kei can’t even put into words.

“Feel what?” he asks warily, suddenly too aware of the way Shouyou’s nails bite into his skin.

“That moment,” he elaborates. “The moment when you’re hooked on volleyball.”

He understands what Shouyou is talking about now, but he’s not sure how to answer it. He supposes he hasn’t had that moment yet, since he’s still not sure what it means. Sure, scoring the set point is nice and all, and he’s thrilled that Shouyou is paying so much attention to him, but that’s not what Kuroo and Bokuto and Shouyou have been talking about. That’s not _that moment_.

So he shakes his head. “Sorry, you’ll have to try harder.”

Shouyou’s lips pucker into a pout. “I thought for sure it was that spike…” he says, trailing off into an unintelligible mumble at the end.

“What was that?” Kei asks sarcastically, leaning his ear toward Shouyou with an expectant smile.

Shouyou snaps his mouth shut and doesn’t say anything for a second. “…I said it was cool.”

Kei smirks. “Yeah, yeah, I’m a natural prodigy, the most talented player on the team,” he jokes, and Shouyou rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, his head lolling with the movement. “You should try it, too, if you think it’s so cool.”

Shouyou’s face turns sour and he growls, low enough that Kei can barely hear it over the din of the gym. “Grr, I’ll do it! Just watch me!”

Kei can’t say he _won’t_ be watching him. That would just be a lie.

“I won’t lose!”

“You keep saying that,” Kei says, jumping a little when the whistle blows to indicate that they need to change sides. “What does it even mean?”

“It means I won’t lose!” Shouyou repeats, huffing a little through his nose. “You’re my rival, so I’m going to beat you.”

It’s simple enough, he supposes. It makes some amount of sense. It’s how Shouyou treats everyone: like a rival, like someone he has to prove himself to. Kei, of course, would be no different. Because that’s who he is to Shouyou: a rival.

The realization is enough to make his stomach sink, even if he doesn’t want it to. Even if he wants to rationalize that there’s no _reason_ for him to be upset about something like this, for him to feel unimportant and pushed to the side. Because obviously, that’s not what’s happened. Because it’s _always_ been this way. This is who Shouyou is, fundamentally. Someone who desperately chases after improvement, who wants to be the best and won’t stop until he’s reached the top.

It’s admirable in a way, and infuriating in another. And in yet another, it’s absolutely captivating.

And therein lies the problem.

Kei shoves down his feelings of inadequacy, the voice in his head that keeps telling him he’s not _special_ , not _important_ , that he’s just the guy who happened to switch bodies with him, and he focuses on the game. Because that’s where he is right now. That’s what he should be doing.

He’s Hinata Shouyou, the tiny middle blocker of Karasuno. The demonic decoy, the spiker with the terrifying quick.

It doesn’t matter if he’s not _any_ of those things. It’s the role he has to play, the shoes he has to fill, until this is all over. And Shiratorizawa is more important than his dumb emotions.

He’ll deal with his feelings of inadequacy later.

Except, he realizes as the next set starts, his feelings of inadequacy have different plans. They refuse to be ignored, and Kei finds himself sprinting from one side of the court to the other, rally after rally, as if he’s running from those feelings, as if he’s trying to escape them. With every spike he hits, with every cry of victory from his team, he feels better, like a weight is lifting off his chest. He wonders if Shouyou is watching him, and ignores the thoughts that tell him he’s watching _everyone_.

This rotation has Shouyou on the sidelines and Nishinoya in the back. He can feel intense eyes watching him, waiting for him to make a move. It’s more than one pair, and only one—Shouyou’s—is familiar. Then there’s Shiratorizawa’s weird, creepy middle blocker, whose piercing gaze follows his every movement like they’re glued to him. It’s infuriating.

Shiratorizawa serves and the ball comes over the net and directly into Nishinoya’s arms. It’s a perfect receive, passed straight to Kageyama, who sets it to Asahi. He jumps and spikes and gets it past their weirdo blocker. Kei watches the ball fall into the outstretched arms of their number eight like it’s in slow motion. It’s passed back to their setter and tossed to Ushiwaka, just like it always is.

Kei’s feet are moving before he’s fully aware of it. There’s a couple seconds before Ushiwaka hits the ball. It’s enough time, he thinks.

Tanaka is there to close in on the straight. Kageyama is right beside Kei, getting closer and closer to forming a wall between Ushiwaka and the court. When he jumps, Kageyama follows, and Ushiwaka spikes.

Hands out. Arms forward. Far enough apart to cover a wide area, not too far that the ball can slip through. The tips Kuroo had given him flit through his mind and guide his motions.

His arms are short and weak, but they’ll do. He can’t block effectively in this body, but it doesn’t matter now.

Ushiwaka goes for a cross, his hand slamming down on the ball like a whip. Kei thinks it’ll break through the block, until—

His hands are stinging, and he knows they’ll probably bruise later. He’s also aware that he’s sitting on the floor, pushed back by some incredible force.

He winces against the pain and looks up to see the ball on the floor of the court, bouncing just a little as it rolls away. There’s cheering from the stands, but he can’t tell whose team it’s for. He directs his gaze further upward and sees Tanaka and Kageyama staring down at him, shocked and a little concerned.

When Tanaka sees that he’s all right, though, the worry turns ecstatic, and he’s cheering, waving his arms around and jumping like an excitable dog. Kageyama is calmer, and he offers his hand to help Kei up.

They blocked it.

_He_ blocked it, he notes numbly, observing the clean, unmarked skin on Kageyama’s forearms and palms, a stark contrast to Kei’s reddened skin.

“Good job,” Kageyama says, flashing an unnatural and forced smile that wobbles and wavers with the effort put into it. It’s a nice gesture, maybe. He thinks. It’s also kind of terrifying, but that’s neither here nor there.

“Thanks,” Kei says as he takes the king’s hand and pulls himself up, lightly dusting himself off.

Then the world explodes with realization as he sees Ushiwaka’s narrowed eyes staring down at him, his massive body hulked out and looming over him as if he’s ready to tear him in two.

Because _he_ stopped the spike. He, against all odds created by the body swap, managed to stop one of Ushiwaka’s spikes. And everyone saw it.

That’s it.

That’s what it feels like. To be hooked on volleyball, to be obsessed with something he had considered “just a club.” This is that moment.

His heart is pounding in his ears and his chest is heaving with exertion and there’s sweat dripping down his face, down his neck, down his legs, and this is _that moment_. Kei feels the change overcome him in much the same way he had realized his crush on Shouyou. It’s not exactly the same, because he’s not about to reach out and kiss a volleyball or anything (he’s not Kageyama, for crying out loud).

But it’s similar. It’s the rush of adrenaline, the sudden impact that hits him with a feeling of urgency and importance, the drive to be better, _do_ better, the feeling of desire and want that supersedes everything else because nothing is more important than this, right here.

It’s weird and new and familiar all at once, and it’s not until he catches himself smiling from ear to ear that he comes crashing back down to reality and the next rally starts.

But this rally, and the one after that, and the one after that are all met with a new ambition that propels him forward, keeps him moving and on his feet, and even if he wants desperately to shut down another one of Ushiwaka’s spikes, he greedily accepts his current role as decoy and dashes across the court, from side to side, jumping higher than he thought he could, than _Shouyou_ thought he could, and the tosses keep coming. And the tosses themselves get higher as Kageyama adjusts to him, watching him with calculating eyes as the game continues.

They lose the third set, but win the fourth. The fifth set carries into the twenties. And yet, despite the drag in his muscles, the burn in his thighs, Kei somehow finds it in him to continue. He thinks that, if he were in his own body, if he hadn’t been in this situation, if he hadn’t learned how to move like Shouyou and savor the energy and stamina he’s built up through his life, maybe things would have turned out differently. Maybe he wouldn’t be so intent on winning. Maybe he would have given up.

But maybe he wouldn’t have. He can’t say for certain either way, because this is the here and now and there’s nothing he wants to change about it.

With the final point that cements their victory, even Kei is screaming. He doesn’t know if he’s ever done that before, and from the surprised and delighted looks that his team gives him, he thinks it’s been far too long since they’ve heard their precious decoy scream so loudly.

There’s shouting from behind him before two bodies are crashing into him, and Kei almost topples over before he catches himself and looks up to see Shouyou and Yamaguchi hugging him tightly, encasing him in some kind of Kei sandwich.

“Get—get off of me,” he grumbles, pushing at their arms and torsos and trying and failing to pry them off of him. They’re just too big and too heavy and Kei vows that as soon as he’s back in his own body, he’s going to belly flop on top of Shouyou and force him to endure the same struggles he’s putting him through now. What kind of person is he, if not one who runs exclusively on spite?

Yamaguchi is the first to release him from entrapment with a shout of “Sorry, Tsukki!” Kei wants to admonish him for the slip-up but he realizes that the gym is so loud that no one would have heard them anyway, and he breathes out a quick sigh and lets it go.

Shouyou is still hanging on, even long after he’s stopped celebrating and hugging him tightly. But there’s an arm around his shoulders, hips pushing against his, fingers squeezing into skin. If Kei wasn’t already sweating, he’s sure he would be now, and he’s _positive_ that the heat on his cheeks isn’t just from exertion. They’re too close, and that’s dangerous.

(But he likes it, so he doesn’t let go.)

They only part when it’s time to end the game with hands shaken and bows taken and niceties all performed. Kei’s side feels empty without Shouyou there but he pushes that thought down because it’s dumb and sappy and cliché and now’s not the time for that kind of thing.

Then come the ceremonies, where they’re awarded medals and a trophy and given words of encouragement for nationals. It’s long and drawn out far more than necessary, but he can hear sniffles and quiet sobs from the third years (and a little from Tanaka, too) because it hasn’t quite sunk in yet that this is _real_ , that they’ve toppled the indomitable and forged their way to nationals. That they’ve _won_.

The world is spinning even when he leaves the gym, Yamaguchi and Shouyou and even Kageyama at his heels. Everyone takes the time to wind down, and yet Kei can only think of the way his body is still restless, still itching to hit more balls, to block and spike and serve and fight against someone stronger.

He almost feels like he’s mind-melded with Shouyou somehow, like his mind has merged with the body he’s in and he’s become one with the volleyball freak. He knows it’s not true, but the daze he’s in, the volleyball mania circling through his head nonstop, the urge to keep playing even after he’s so worn out, so exhausted, that he doesn’t feel like he can even lift a finger, much less jump high enough to see over the net, is more than a little convincing.

Then with only cursory knowledge to how he got there, he finds himself sitting on a bench outside the arena. The first years are all gathered there, everyone else off cooling down in their own ways. Kageyama and Shouyou are lying on the ground, splayed out with arms akimbo as they stare up at the afternoon sun. Yamaguchi is beside him, breathing heavily even if he’s only a pinch server and he wasn’t in the game for all five sets. Yachi is standing behind them, shifting on her feet from side to side as she looks between them all, a big smile on her face and praise gushing out of her mouth like a faucet with a broken spigot.

“You were all so great!” she squeals, jumping up once to emphasize her excitement. There’s electricity and magic in the air and the world around Kei feels lighter. Yachi’s voice floats on a melody, his teammates’ pants little puffs of clouds that lift her lilt up and carry it through the air.

“It was exhausting!” Yamaguchi breathes out all at once in one slurred exhale. Yachi giggles, light and happy and a little delirious, and Kei doesn’t blame her. He’s still in shock, himself.

Then Shouyou sits up and his cheeks are red and his glasses are skewed and his hair is mussed and there’s a lazy smile tugging at his face and Kei’s brought crashing back into reality because Shouyou, above all, is someone he can’t ignore.

“We did it,” he says breathlessly. There’s sweat rolling down his temple and Kei can’t help but to fixate on it. “We beat Ushiwaka.”

“You were barely any help,” Kageyama barks, but there’s no bite to it. Maybe he’s too tired to fight, or maybe he’s trying to be respectful, in his own unique way, of Kei’s crush, but there’s a different quality to his tone that makes Kei think that maybe things are changing between them.

Or maybe he’s just imagining things.

“Oh, shove it, Bakageyama,” Shouyou says, sticking his tongue out as far as it can go. Kageyama’s face scrunches up at the nickname, and he shoots him That Look again, all scrunched up and weirded out and confused.

“Don’t call me that,” he says, shuffling away awkwardly even while he’s still lying on the grass. “It’s creepy.”

Shouyou grunts and looks away, arms folded over his chest. “Well, it’s what you are.”

“You sound way too much like Hinata when you say those things,” Kageyama says, and there’s a skip in Kei’s chest. But he points directly at Kei and keeps his stare even on Shouyou and he doesn’t look any the wiser. Kei glances over to Yachi, though, and her eyebrows are furrowed and she looks between them like she’s figured something out but doesn’t quite know what that _something_ is yet.

He’d rather keep it that way.

So he clears his throat and jumps up and says, “You played well today, Tsukishima.” He surprises himself with how soft it sounds, how sincere it is. Gross.

But Shouyou beams up at him so wide it squints his eyes and reddens his cheeks more, and Kei feels emotions grip his chest and wow. That’s really how this is now, isn’t it? That’s how this is going to be from now on.

“You did great, too, Hinata!” he exclaims, wrapping his fingers in Kei’s jersey. He says the name like it’s an inside joke between them, just like he always does, and it’s almost thrilling and exciting to be in on the joke. He hears Yamaguchi snicker beside him, and Kei wants to be upset, wants to be annoyed, but he can’t look away from Shouyou’s face and there’s no way he can be angry when he’s looking at him and when he looks _like that_.

“Th–thanks,” he mumbles, low and throaty, because he can’t trust his voice right now. Somehow, that just widens Shouyou’s smile, and the grip on his jersey gets tighter as he slumps over, resting his head on Kei’s lap with a loud, exaggerated sigh.

“I’m so tired, though!” he says, almost directly into Kei’s legs. “Five-set matches are tough!”

Kei wants to say something, maybe a sarcastic quip or a bland retort, but he’s found his brain has short circuited. Figures.

“I could keep going,” Kageyama says, but it’s between labored breaths and he still hasn’t sat up, his shaggy hair splayed across the grass like it’s being held up with static electricity. “It wasn’t that bad.”

Kei honestly doesn’t doubt him. His stamina is endless and impossible. Although, he used to say that about Shouyou’s energy, too, and that opinion has changed. It _does_ have an end; he’s found it plenty of times. He found it during the match against Ushiwaka, too, and that’s one of the reasons why he’s taken aback by Kageyama’s total willingness to keep going.

Maybe Shouyou would want to keep going as well, if he were in his proper body. If he weren’t in Kei’s useless, poorly conditioned body. That’s probably how it would happen.

Yachi laughs and sits down on the grass, her legs folded neatly beneath her. “Keep that energy for practice tomorrow. It’ll help you more then,” she says, and Kei is impressed with the way she understands how to work the Japanese language to influence others. It’s a gift, perhaps.

Kageyama doesn’t notice what she’s trying to do and falls into the trap easily. “Right!” he exclaims, and he finally pushes himself into a sitting position, his hair in disarray with blades of stray grass sticking out of it at odd angles. He nods fervently enough that some of the grass shakes loose from his head, but his hair stays just as messy, sweat plastering chunks together and to his face.

Shouyou perks up, too, his eyes sparkling from behind his glasses at the prospect of playing more volleyball. Kei shakes his head a little. Once a freak, always a freak.

He can’t believe he _likes_ this guy.

“Should we head back to the bus?” Yamaguchi asks, stretching his arms above his head. “We’ll probably be leaving soon.”

Kei nods and stands up, jostling Shouyou from his perch on his thighs. He ignores Shouyou’s heatless glare and steps around him, twisting a little to loosen up his muscles. The other three follow suit, brushing the grass off their clothes, and then they head back to where the bus is waiting.

The bus ride back would be peaceful, except he’s found himself sitting next to Shouyou, and that’s the worst possible decision he’s made today.

It’s good, he thinks, that Shouyou is tired, since that means he’ll be quiet and won’t say weird things that make Kei’s heart beat faster and bring heat to his cheeks and draw the breath from his lungs. It’s fine, he insists, until Shouyou is slumping over, half-asleep, and resting his head on his shoulder.

It has to be uncomfortable. It _has_ to be. There’s almost a twenty-six centimeter difference between them, and Shouyou’s leaning _down_ to reach Kei’s impossibly low shoulder. He’s sliding down in his seat, his butt nearly falling off the bench, and he’s _resting on Kei’s shoulder_. It’s like some stupid shoujo romance scenario, except the roles are flipped and the tiny, cute girl is having to hold up a mountain of a man on top of her.

It’s anything but endearing, he thinks. It’s anything but soft and cute and romantic. If anything, it’s annoying and weird and awkward to an extreme, and Kei wants to hate it.

But Shouyou’s breathing softly into his ear and mumbling unintelligible words in his half-asleep delirium and Kei can see every detail of Shouyou’s face, of _his face_ , and the way Shouyou makes it uniquely his. Even the features that are unique to Kei’s face look foreign and new to him, from the slope of his nose to the tiny wrinkles of his lips. Everything about it looks like _Shouyou_.

He wonders, briefly, if Shouyou would say the same about him, if he would think that his own face no longer looks familiar, that every feature has been contorted into something brand new, something only Kei can create.

He stops that thought by telling himself that Shouyou would never think too deeply about something like that. Wouldn’t think too deeply about someone like him.

“Psst,” comes a whisper from in front of him, and Kei is startled from his embarrassing trance, captivated by the boy laying on his arm. He looks up quickly to see Yamaguchi twisted around in his seat, peeking through the middle between the two seats with his face pressed into the fabric. His lips puff out comically, like a fish. It’s amusing, but not amusing enough to make Kei forget that Yamaguchi was just watching Kei swoon over Shouyou.

He chokes back a groan and blinks in Yamaguchi’s direction, hoping he’ll be able to translate it as a slightly irritated, monotonous, _what._

Yamaguchi doesn’t answer, instead dragging his eyes purposefully toward Shouyou, who snuffs a little and wiggles around in his sleep. Kei doesn’t bother saying anything or even looking to where Shouyou is; he just settles for glaring at Yamaguchi.

“Things are going well for you two,” he whispers, so softly that Kei almost doesn’t hear it. His eyes sparkle even in the waning sunlight, and Kei hates literally everything about this conversation already.

“What does it matter?” he whispers back, softer even than Yamaguchi because he desperately doesn’t want to wake Shouyou up (not that he’d ever tell Yamaguchi that, the bastard). Shouyou stirs beside him, and Kei’s heart is struck with fear. But he doesn’t wake up. It doesn’t calm him down any.

“You’re really good _friends_ now,” he says, pressing his lips together expectantly.

“Yeah, we are,” Kei says, refusing to give him the pleasure of breaking him. He won’t spill anything here. He won’t do it. He knows exactly what will happen if he even _hints_ that he likes Shouyou. It’s the same thing _he_ did when Yamaguchi mentioned off-handedly that he thought Yachi was cute.

Yamaguchi is undeterred. “You’ve gotten real close, huh?” He’s smiling even if Kei can’t see the full breadth of his face. “Real… touchy.”

“What, are you saying you want to start holding hands with me?” Kei asks, smirking when Yamaguchi falters and leans back in his seat in his shock.

“N–no!” he says, just a little too loudly, and Kei can hear Kageyama grunt next to Yamaguchi. There’s jostling in the seats in front of him and he watches the king jab him in the side for disrupting him, and Yamaguchi apologizes quickly (and insincerely). Kageyama turns and shoves his terrifying, half-asleep face into the opening between the seats and sends him a warning glare before pulling his face away, only to be replaced by Yamaguchi a second later. “No. Gross. Your asshole germs would probably rub off on me.”

“Like they haven’t already,” Kei says monotonously. Yamaguchi ponders that for a moment, then hums noncommittally.

“More than they already have, then,” he says. “But…”

“There’s nothing going on between me and Tsukishima,” Kei says, deciding he’s had enough with the back and forth. If it keeps going, he might spill something he’d much rather keep inside him.

Yamaguchi grunts, low and disappointed, but Kei doesn’t actually care.

It effectively cuts off the conversation, and Kei doesn’t care about that, either. He has a right to his privacy, especially when his friend is being a nosy shit who’s trying way too hard to insert himself into Kei’s love life.

Oh god, that sounds so cheesy. He’s never _had_ a love life. He’s never wanted one. And now he has one and it’s staring him in the face and he can’t get away from it. He has a _love life_. Even if it’s unrealized, even if it’s unrequited. This is the worst.

Yamaguchi sends him one last suspicious look before huffing and turning around in his seat. The action leves him open to becoming a pillow for Kageyama, who mirror’s Shouyou’s current position and rests his head on Yamaguchi’s shoulder, sinking in deep. Kei can only see a little of it through the opening between the seats, but he can still imagine Yamaguchi’s red face and rigid posture as he struggles and fails to figure out what to do about this new development.

At least Kei has him beat in this department. Even for all of his own worries, at least he’s not freaking out about Shouyou using him as a pillow.

_…That_ much.

The areas where they’re pressed against each other are still too hot, too noticeable, and he’s hyperaware of Shouyou’s clammy, sweat-soaked skin on his. But at least he doesn’t let anyone else know these things. He keeps them all safely internalized, where he can freak out about his crush without anyone ever knowing.

And maybe, perhaps, he’ll text Kageyama as soon as he gets home and blurt out every thought he’s having right now because he needs _some_ outlet for it all, and Kageyama’s the best bet.

(And then he’ll buy Kageyama an apology milk the next day at practice, and all will be forgiven. Probably.)

With Yamaguchi incapacitated under Kageyama’s weight, the rest of the bus ride goes smoothly. No one attempts to talk to him, probably since the other chatterboxes of the team, Tanaka and Nishinoya, are on the far end of the bus and nowhere near him. It’s comforting, he thinks, and he’s able to relax into Shouyou and pretend that this is all normal and fine and okay.

Then his traitorous, horrible, lovesick mind pretends that Shouyou returns his feelings, that they’re cuddling in private, that it’s mutual and loving and it’s everything Kei could hope for.

The rational part of his mind screams at him for daring to even _think_ these things, scolds him for getting his hopes up and making something out of nothing. Because of course Shouyou’s just tired, and Kei just happened to be the one to sit next to him on the ride home. There’s nothing there that says “Shouyou is obviously crushing on you so hard, he can’t get enough of you!”

As if.

But for right now, it doesn’t hurt to ignore logic and reality. It’s hard _not_ to when Shouyou’s breathing softly and tickling his ear and every inch of the left side of his body is covered by _Shouyou_ and really. Who can blame him?

So he lets himself drown in his fantasies, and he’s lulled into a half-awake, half-asleep reverie where everything is nice and good and he’s no longer pining because his feelings are reciprocated and they’re _happy_. And, because he’s living out his greatest fantasies in his mind right now, he throws in a sprinkle on top where they’re finally back in their own bodies and the universe has corrected itself again.

He’s so far gone that he almost doesn’t feel the hands on his shoulders shaking him. But when a soft tenor is shouting his name—no, not his name, it’s shouting, “Hinata!”

When he hears the name, he groans and cracks open his eyes just a little as he returns to the waking world. He can barely see his surroundings through his blurry vision, and a pounding in his head tells him he needs to go back to sleep as soon as he possibly can.

Then the world comes into focus, just a little, and he can see Shouyou’s face shoved close to his, eyes wide and concerned and lips pouting the longer he shakes him. When he sees that Kei’s awake, though, his lips part into a soft smile and the shaking stops. “You’re awake!” he exclaims, and Kei is too aware that his hands are still grabbing his shoulders.

He just nods because sleep is clogging his throat, and maybe that’s a good thing because he doesn’t think he’d be able to talk anyway. His mouth is dry and his mind is slow and the only thing he can register right now is the fact that Shouyou is so close to him that he could just pucker his lips and they’d be kissing.

He doesn’t do that.

Instead, he turns his head and looks out the window, only to notice that they’ve stopped and the school is blocking out the moon’s glow in the sky. They’ve arrived home, and the golden hues of the setting sun cast lengthy shadows on the ground and the world outside the bus.

“We’re back,” Shouyou says, and Kei nods to that, too. That seems to satisfy him well enough, because Shouyou pulls away and leaves a blistering chill in the place of where his hands had rested, so warm and enticing.

He shuffles out of the bus with a yawn and a drag in his feet, and when they’re outside he finds himself leaning into Shouyou to help him keep himself upright. If Shouyou notices, he doesn’t say anything, and so Kei takes advantage of that and presses himself a little deeper into his side.

All at once the world around them erupts into loud cheering, and the team swivels their heads around in unison to look up at the school, where dozens of students and teachers are hanging out of the windows, all congratulating them on their victory. A sensation of unabashed pride settles over the team and they bathe in the praise, and then they turn back to each other for brief reconnaissance.

There are a few short words from Coach Ukai and Takeda, all punctuated with deep, exhausted yawns, and then they’re dismissed to go home.

Kei lingers a little behind, mulling around until the rest of the team is far enough away that he can talk to Shouyou without prying eyes or eavesdroppers (Yamaguchi. He’s talking about Yamaguchi). Then he yanks on Shouyou’s shirt and drags him down sharply.

“Can I sleep over?” he asks, his lips involuntarily pouting and his eyes downcast, as if he’s _embarrassed_ to ask if he can sleep over at _his own house_. Ridiculous.

But is it _his_ house right now? He’s certainly not welcome there, not in his current state. It’s a realization that drops an unsettling pit in his stomach.

Shouyou looks Kei up and down, inspecting him or something of the like. “Yeah, of course,” he says after a moment and with no hesitation.

Kei looks up and furrows his brows, not expecting that assured response. “Really?”

Shouyou shrugs. “I mean, yeah. You look exhausted, and my house is, like, forty-five minutes away from here. You’d probably crash and die if you tried to bike home now. I was going to offer anyway.”

Kei blinks slowly, taking it in. He realizes, once again, just how good Shouyou is with people, because Kei can’t think of a situation when he’d be able to have that same level of awareness for other people. Even with Yamaguchi it’s hard, and he prefers to have clear communication over vague body language and guessing.

But Shouyou gleans it just from a once-over and his own experience. It’s admirable, in a way, and Kei finds his heart stuttering in spite of himself.

“Thanks,” he says, because if he tries to say anything longer than that he might explode, or worse, trip over his words.

Shouyou smiles for reasons beyond Kei’s comprehension, and Kei’s grateful for the evening that casts shadows over his reddening face.

“Let’s go then!” he says excitedly, bouncing around like a dog begging for a walk. Kei shakes his head and follows after him, only stopping to grab his bike on the way. He’s grateful for the support the bike offers, but a terrible, horrible thought worms its way into his mind and it latches on and doesn’t let go. If he didn’t have the bike, he might need to lean on Shouyou for support.

And the thought alone is enough to make him want to discard the bike. Instead, though, he grips the handles tighter and clenches his jaw tighter and he absolutely refuses to give in to the impulse.

Shouyou, completely unaware of Kei’s inner turmoil, hums something tuneless at his side as they walk down the streets toward Kei’s house.

It’s going to be a long night.


	15. step 15. at midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You have the emotional capacity of a jelly bean,” Kei accuses.
> 
> “So does the guy you’re crushing on,” Kageyama retorts, and Kei wants to take offense to that, but he has nothing to say, really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact this was originally the penultimate chapter, but i split the next chapter in 2 parts because it was over 12k long jkfdglsdj

It’s after Kei’s mother has gone to bed and the lights are out that Shouyou turns on his side and faces Kei, teeth nibbling at his smiling lips.

“What are you looking at?” Kei asks, frowning into the darkness. He’s not even sure if Shouyou can see his face, curled up under the covers as he is, but he nonetheless projects his tired annoyance as clearly as he can.

“Nothing, I guess,” he answers, and Kei thinks that Shouyou must have some kind of secret magical powers because the fogginess of exhaustion leaves his head then, replaced by a thirsting curiosity to know what Shouyou is thinking.

“You’re lying,” Kei points out, and he sees Shouyou’s face fall as he squirms in his own futon.

“I was just seeing if you were awake,” Shouyou answers, and Kei knows it’s another lie but he doesn’t pursue it this time.

“You got your answer, then,” he says gruffly, pulling the covers above his head to make it seem like he’s trying to go to bed. Really, it’s to hide the flush dusting his cheeks because the longer he stares at Shouyou, the more he _feels,_ and that’s dangerous when they’re alone and it’s so quiet that Shouyou could hear Kei’s heart thumping against his chest.

The covers are pulled back down, ripping out of Kei’s loose grasp on them before he can even protest. “Don’t go to sleep now!” Shouyou begs, a soft whine in his voice. He hovers over Kei on his hands and knees, pouting down at him.

“Don’t sleepovers usually involve sleeping?” Kei grumbles as he stares up at him, hoping the shadows in the room hide the red of his face.

“Not on TV they don’t,” Shouyou points out, and Kei presses a weary hand to his forehead. “Come on, Kei! I’m still too excited about nationals to sleep. Please?”

Even his begging and whining are quiet, and Kei wonders when he learned about the concept of volume control. Maybe it was over the past few months, pretending to be someone he’s not.

But Kei thinks this quietness is nice. It’s soothing and entrancing and Kei wants to grab onto every one of his words as they spill like a rain shower off his lips. Which is why he sighs and rolls over onto his side, accepting that he’ll be awake much later than he’d intended, even as he feels his eyes droop closed. His mind is racing now anyway, and he doesn’t think he’d be able to get to sleep regardless of if Shouyou leaves him alone or not.

Shouyou returns to his futon, cuddling back under the comforter with a little wiggle. He closes his eyes and for a while, he doesn’t talk. Kei wonders if maybe he’s fallen asleep with the way his chest rises and falls steadily. But then he hums under his breath and flutters his lashes, blinking away the sleep that had accrued there in that short time.

“We’re going to nationals,” he says, still quiet, like if he raises his voice above a whisper it’ll shatter whatever illusion has befallen them. Kei likes it this way, with the silence around them unbroken even through their conversation.

Kei hums in response. “Yeah, we are.”

“You did really great today,” Shouyou says, and there’s a touch of _something_ in his voice that has Kei reeling. It’s an emotion he wasn’t aware his voice could produce, and Kei can barely hear Shouyou’s next words over the _thump thump thump_ of his heart. “You were definitely the MVP, I think.”

Kei snorts. “Hardly,” he says, but he finds himself backtracking when Shouyou grunts. “You and Kageyama did way more than I did. I just scored a few points.”

“Are you kidding me?” And even through Shouyou’s whisper Kei can hear the excitement encasing every word in a fine gloss, carrying it on a silver thread of laughter to Kei’s ears. “You were all _whoosh_ and _bwah!_ I could barely keep up!”

Kei raises an eyebrow. “You blocked more of Ushiwaka’s spikes than I did, though.”

“And you scored more than I did,” Shouyou counters.

There’s a comfortable silence dancing in the air as Kei thinks all of that through. “I guess we’ve learned our new roles well, then.”

“I still want to spike,” Shouyou says, and it’s even quieter now. Kei didn’t think that was possible, and he subconsciously leans in, eager to hear each word. “But blocking isn’t so awful when you’re tall. It’s almost easy.”

“Yeah, I think you definitely lucked out in this exchange.” Kei draws his hand from under the covers and motions between them. “I’m still working my ass off.”

“But you’ve gotten better because of it,” Shouyou points out. “You look like you’re having a lot more fun now.”

“I think I had that moment,” Kei says after a beat. “The one you keep talking about.”

“Really?” Shouyou sits up in one motion, a bright, expecting smile on his face. “What was it?”

“When I blocked that one spike,” Kei explains. “It hurt, but it also felt really good.”

Shouyou giggles. “You were born to be a middle blocker, I think.”

Kei quirks up an eyebrow. “Ah, yes, clearly I was destined to be a middle blocker just because I was able to block one of the terrifying, indomitable colossus Ushiwaka’s monstrous spikes.”

“I don’t know half the words you just said,” Shouyou says, but he’s still laughing and it sounds like music.

“Look them up,” Kei mumbles, burying his face in his pillow.

“I will later,” Shouyou promises. They both know he has no intention of following through with that. “But still. You did it! You had that moment! Does that mean you love volleyball now?”

Kei wonders what definition of _love_ Shouyou is using here. Is it a strong attachment to the sport, a hunger for victory and a drive to keep improving? Or is it that bottomless desire to come out on top, that terrifying motivation to do the impossible and keep doing the impossible until everyone else has been crushed beneath his feet? Compared to Shouyou, Kei thinks that _love_ would be too strong a word to describe his current feelings. Compared to that other emotion sitting in his chest, that tightness that clenches whenever Shouyou smiles or that breathlessness whenever he laughs or that need to cling onto every word he says, Kei thinks that _love_ is an impossible, insurmountable feat because nothing can quite come close to what he feels for Shouyou.

“Yeah,” he answers anyway, because there’s no way to sum up his thoughts in a way that Shouyou can understand, in a way that wouldn’t leave him far too vulnerable.

Shouyou’s smile stretches wider, and it pulls Kei’s heartstrings with it. “I’m glad.”

And that’s all he says. He falls back down into the futon and settles in, finally calming down from the excitement of the day. Kei wishes desperately that Shouyou will continue, say _something_ just so he can hear his voice again. He wants to respond to continue the conversation, to prompt Shouyou to keep going. But he’s never been good at small talk, and so he lies uncomfortably in the silence that Shouyou seems to melt into.

When Kei is sure that Shouyou’s done talking for good, that he’s gotten out all of his energy and has finally fallen asleep, he speaks again. “I want to play volleyball professionally.”

“What? You?” Kei asks in disbelief, even though he knows by now that he should never doubt Shouyou’s abilities to succeed on pure willpower alone.

Shouyou scoffs. “Yes, me! I think I can do it. I’m going to play volleyball in college, too.”

“You’re going to _college?”_ he asks, his jaw falling slack. “Can you even pass the entrance exams?”

“I can!” Shouyou argues, shuffling closer to Kei so that his face is uncomfortably close to him. “I’m not _that_ dumb, you know. Kageyama’s dumber than me, and even _he_ wants to go to university.”

Kei doesn’t really believe his ears, but he decides that there’s no way to drag Shouyou back down to reality, not tonight. “What are you going to study, then?”

“Sports medicine,” Shouyou says firmly. “Or maybe I’ll be scouted and join the Olympic team and go pro before I even get out of high school!”

Kei’s face draws up in a wry smile. “Yeah, sure. Maybe you can do it in _my_ body.”

Shouyou’s face turns sour. “I can do it in _my_ body, too! Just watch me!”

And Kei wants to. He wants to see Shouyou get so good that no one can ignore him anymore, so good that he becomes his own spotlight, a walking, talking sunbeam that demands the attention of everyone in the nation. He wants to see Shouyou become a household name, become an Olympic star, fulfill his dreams.

It would be nice to watch all of that from his side, following him wherever he goes, watching him inspire a world of people and not just Kei. Shouyou has that potential, he thinks. He could do it.

Kei wants to see him try.

But Kei just huffs out a short chuckle and nods, his hair rubbing up against his pillow and sticking out at odd angles. “Good luck, then.”

“You don’t even believe me,” Shouyou says, a low hum turning into a whine. And Kei wants to say that he _does_ believe him, that he knows Shouyou could do literally anything he put his mind to. But that would make him too vulnerable, too open, and so he clamps down on his words and refuses to speak. “I’m still going to do it, though. And you’re going to watch me.”

Kei knows full well that he’s going to watch him. There’s no way he could ever look away.

“You know, maybe this whole body swap thing was supposed to be a learning experience,” Shouyou says suddenly, changing the topic so fast that Kei gets emotional whiplash.

“What are you talking about?” Kei asks, too stunned to put any emotion behind his words. He’s too confused to have any emotions about it, anyway.

“Well, I was thinking,” Shouyou begins, turning over onto his back so he’s facing the ceiling. “I like being tall and whatever, but I kinda want my own body back.”

“You had your time in the spotlight and now you’re satisfied?” Kei guesses. He doesn’t really mean for it to come out sarcastically, but it does anyway.

Shouyou doesn’t even seem to pick up on it, though, and Kei is grateful for that. “No, I mean like… I feel like I’m cheating. I want to be able to do all of this on my own, without your height.”

It’s a surprisingly admirable explanation for a simpleton like Shouyou. Although, Kei supposes, Shouyou isn’t quite as simple as he’d thought only a few months ago. He may be a dumbass, but he has plenty of strengths elsewhere.

“I’m not going to get any better if I keep relying on something that isn’t even mine to begin with,” Shouyou continues, and even though Kei can only see Shouyou’s profile in the dim room, he still catches a tiny frown pulling at his lips. “So I want to hurry up and get back to normal as soon as possible.”

“Then I can go back to not trying again,” Kei says with a blissful sigh.

“You wouldn’t do that, though,” Shouyou says like it’s just a fact of life.

“And why do you think that?” Kei asks.

“Because you’ve found your passion,” he answers simply, shrugging despite lying on his back. “You want to keep moving forward, don’t you?”

Kei is taken aback, left scrambling for words to say. “I–I guess so…”

“Then you won’t go back to the way you were before.” His tone is decisive and knowing, not leaving even a centimeter of space to argue with his conclusion. Kei accepts it as fact, because Shouyou probably knows him better than he does. Shouyou knows a lot of things that Kei never expected from him.

“But I will miss being able to playing with Akiteru every weekend,” Shouyou says. “I like your brother a lot. He’s passionate and really nice.”

Kei hums. “He sure is something. I wonder if he would have invited me to play with his team. I mean, if I were in my own body. If we had never swapped places.”

“I think he would have. He loves you a lot,” Shouyou says. He’s still looking up at the ceiling, and Kei can’t tell what kind of expression he’s wearing.

“I know,” Kei says finally, after deciding he won’t be able to glean any more information from Shouyou’s body language. “He cares about me way too much to be normal. It’s a little weird.”

“What?” Shouou says, disbelief coloring his voice. “I think it’s sweet. He’s really open and honest about his feelings, unlike _you_.”

“He wasn’t always,” Kei says before he can stop himself.

“What do you mean by that?” Finally, Shouyou turns on his side again and faces Kei with that intense stare that seem to penetrate deep into his soul.

“The honest thing, I mean.” Kei tries not to squirm under Shouyou’s gaze. “Sure, he cares about me, but it got him into trouble in high school.”

“What kind of trouble?” Shouyou asks, and suddenly his voice is soft and hesitant, treading lightly so as not to disrupt Kei’s feelings. It’s weird and uncomfortable, but not unwelcome.

“I, um.” He pauses, wondering if he should even continue. But Shouyou’s waiting patiently for him to answer, and Kei is compelled to oblige. “He played volleyball in high school, too, and he told me he was the ace of his team.”

“Didn’t he go to school with the Little Giant?” Shouyou asks, and Kei cringes at the memory.

“Yeah, he did.”

“Then why did he lie to you?” Shouyou asks, and his tone is open and sincere, truly worried about what happened. Kei wonders how Shouyou is able to make a total flip in his demeanor between day and night, from boisterous and overwhelming to soft and sweet. It’s like the twilight transforms him.

“He cared too much about what I think,” Kei finishes gruffly, clearing his throat against the feelings that well up. “He cared so much about a club that he couldn’t even tell his own brother he was a perpetual benchwarmer.”

“That just means he loves you,” Shouyou says. “He wanted you to think he was the best. He wanted you to admire him.”

“I did,” Kei says, but it comes out meekly, emotionally.

“I admire him _now,_ ” Shouyou says. “He’s really good.”

Kei hums.

“He’s a lot like Natsu, in a way,” Shouyou continues, probably figuring out that Kei doesn’t want to talk anymore. “She’s really cute but she has so much energy.”

“It must run in the family.”

“Urgh, I hate that I can’t combine your given name with insults,” Shouyou says, gritting his teeth together. “‘Meanie Kei’ doesn’t have the same effect as ‘Meanieshima!’”

“I’m not forcing you to use my given name,” Kei says. “You started calling me Kei all on your own.”

“That’s because it’s a cute name,” Shouyou says, and Kei scrambles to hide his sudden flush. “You don’t even need a nickname.”

“Wh–what were you saying about Natsu?” Kei says, frantically trying to redirect the conversation away from whatever this is becoming.

“Oh! Right!” Shouyou exclaims, taking the bait easily. “She’s a lot like Akiteru. I think she’ll probably grow up to be like him.”

“She’s a younger sibling, though,” Kei says. “I guess she’d be a good mom, if she ends up being like Akiteru.”

“Maybe!” Shouyou agrees excitedly. “She doesn’t play with dolls much so I don’t know. And now that she’s older she’s gotten really pushy, and I don’t think that’s very mom-like either. But she’s still really passionate about everything she does and she cares a lot about her friends. She’s a good kid.” He trails off into silence, his voice breaking at the end like he’s about to cry.

“Do you miss her?” Kei asks tentatively, trying to keep his voice quiet and reticent so as not to push Shouyou too hard, like how Shouyou treats Kei’s worries.

He doesn’t know if he succeeds or not, but Shouyou blinks once before breaking into a tiny smile. “Yeah, I do. She’s a pain, but I love her, you know?”

Kei does know, because it’s how he feels about his own brother. He’s still uncomfortable being around Akiteru most of the time, but it doesn’t stop him from wanting to spend time with him, to be near him, to hear his voice. Shouyou hasn’t slept over at his own house in a much longer time than Kei has. He thinks it must be even worse for him.

“She’s a lot like me, I think,” Shouyou continues. “Really active, with lots of energy. She likes to play volleyball with me. When we were younger, she’d kick balls around with me because she wanted to be a soccer player. Last I heard she was dead set on becoming a baseball star.”

“She changed her mind recently,” Kei corrects because he wants to keep Shouyou up to date with his own life. He owes him that much. “She’s really into swimming right now. Mom’s really frustrated because she keeps begging her to take her to the pool but the closest one is over thirty minutes away.”

Shouyou laughs quietly, softly. “That sounds about right. I remember when she wanted to play basketball and she forced dad to set up a hoop in our front yard, but then she changed her mind a month later.”

Kei smiles, trying to imagine the memory. “She’s a handful.”

“She is.”

“You’re a handful, too,” Kei says, ignoring the glare Shouyou sends him. “I’m surprised your mom wanted two of you.”

“Hey!” Shouyou protests, reaching out with his hand and punching Kei lightly on his shoulder. “She loves us!”

“Yeah, she does.” And Kei smiles because he can’t help it.

“Your family loves you, too,” Shouyou says, and there’s this sense of urgency in his tone that Kei can’t quite figure out.

“I guess,” he says, not really wanting to continue this conversation.

“I _know,”_ Shouyou says adamantly, and Kei can imagine that he would stomp his foot if he were standing upright. “They care a lot about you and they want to see you be the best you can be.”

“You sound like my mom,” Kei says with a snort.

“Then you should listen to me!” Shouyou says without missing a beat. “And clean up your room!”

“You’re the one that made the mess,” Kei says, gesturing vaguely to the piles of dirty laundry and papers scattered all over the floor. “You clean it up.”

“But I don’t wanna,” Shouyou says dramatically, dropping the persona immediately. “You can’t make me!”

He turns on his side away from Kei, and he doesn’t respond or say anything no matter how many times Kei pokes him. He gives up with a sigh and decides it’s late enough anyway. So he shifts around in his futon to get comfortable and closes his eyes, the last thing he sees being Shouyou’s back. After a few moments, when he thinks Shouyou’s finally asleep, he mumbles as quietly as he can manage, “Good night.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Shouyou responds. “Good night, Kei.”

  
  


“His face is really soft when he’s sleeping,” Kei groans miserably, burying his head in his legs, which are drawn up to his chest. It makes him feel smaller, which is just great because he wants nothing more than to curl up and disappear from existence right now.

Kageyama nods absentmindedly. “Uh-huh.”

“He told me about his future plans, too,” Kei continues. “He wants to go to college and be a—uh.” He cuts himself off before he can say _professional athlete_ because he’s talking to Kageyama and Kageyama would just be weirded out if he thought that _Kei_ wanted to go professional. Even the thought of him doing something like that sounds ridiculous, and he _is_ Kei. “He wants to be an archaeologist.”

Kageyama snorts. “Figures he’d like to be around dead things all the time.”

Kei scoffs but doesn’t engage further. “We talked about his si—his brother,” he lies, trying to replace the words right before they leave his mouth. “And the way his face _melted_ when we were talking about him… he loves his brother so much, Kageyama. It’s really cute.”

“Gag me with a spoon,” Kageyama says in a monotone, slurping loudly at his milk. When he finishes that carton, he opens the next one. Kei can feel the noticeable weight difference in his wallet.

“When we’re alone, he’s so much different,” he continues without acknowledging Kageyama’s wishes. “Softer, I guess. Easier to talk to. I guess I noticed it a little bit the first time I slept over at his house, but this was so much different. He was—”

“Wait, did you say ‘first time?’” Kageyama says suddenly, leaning in closer. He almost drops his milk in his shock. “How many times have you slept at his house before?”

“Uh…” Kei looks away. “A few? It’s not been that many times.”

“But you’ve done it,” he points out, like there’s a point to be made.

“Yeah?”

“You’re a dumbass,” Kageyama says, but he doesn’t bother elaborating, instead turning back to his milk and his obvious attempts to ignore everything Kei says.

Kei huffs but continues anyway. “I just. I don’t know. It was hard last night, and everything made my heart want to leap out of its chest. I’ve never felt like this before at _all_ , and—”

“I thought you dated in the past?” Kageyama asks suddenly.

“Huh?” Fuck.

“That, uh, the soccer guy from your middle school. Kouji, or something like that.” Kageyama scowls as he tries to remember, and he looks more like he’s trying to burn a hole in the side of his milk carton than anything else.

“Oh, uh, right,” Kei hedges, trying to backtrack. “I’m. Yeah. Him. He must have been different.”

Kageyama glances at him, but Kei can see the disinterest in his dull, unfocused eyes. He supposes he should be eternally grateful for that, since it means the king never bothers to question him when there are discrepancies in his stories. “Sure. All right.”

Kei frowns. “The point is, I’ve never felt like this about anyone before, and it’s weird and new and it feels so good but I still don’t know if I even _want_ this.”

Kageyama sounds like he’s gagging, but when he speaks it’s surprisingly calm. “Do you like him?”

Kei pulls his legs closer to his chest and nods.

“Then say something to him. Confess, or whatever it is you people do.”

“You people? Are we some kind of alien species to you?” Kei asks, relaxing his posture just a little in his irritation.

“You might as well be,” Kageyama says, inspecting his perfectly trimmed nails. “This is all so weird. Why am I here again?”

Kei looks around at the park and the kids who are playing about twenty meters away, completely oblivious to Kei’s internal crisis. He wishes he could be them. Or maybe switch bodies with them. It would get him away from Shouyou, at the very least.

“I asked you to meet me here,” Kei says slowly, knowing full well that’s not what Kageyama wants to know.

“Why did you ask me to meet you here, then?” Kageyama asks, more exasperated this time, his eyebrows drawn together.

“I needed to talk to someone,” Kei says, dropping his forehead onto his knees and leaning back against the tree they’ve found shade under. “You said I could talk to you.”

“Doesn’t mean I want to hear it,” Kageyama says, and Kei can hear the slurp of milk. “I want another milk. This one’s empty.”

“You have the emotional capacity of a jelly bean,” Kei accuses.

“So does the guy you’re crushing on,” Kageyama retorts, and Kei wants to take offense to that, but he has nothing to say, really. “Well, I guess he’s gotten more exciting recently. He’s still annoying, though.”

He huffs, and Kei shrugs from his position, his shoulders bunching around his kneecaps. “I told you he’s changed a lot.”

“So have you.” He says it nonchalantly, but Kei still lifts his head in fear, worried he’s been found out. He knows that logically, Kageyama’s too stupid to figure it out because, like he rationalized at the beginning, no one in their right minds would ever think about body swaps as something real that can actually happen.

“I guess you’re right,” Kei says after sufficiently talking himself down. “Why do you hate him, anyway?”

“Huh? Tsukishima?” Kageyama clarifies, and Kei nods, lifting his head off his knees to look at him. Kageyama stares off into the distance, thinking hard. “Because he’s an asshole.”

“But you just said he’s been changing.” Kei doesn’t know why he’s pushing so hard for this. Really, he couldn’t care less what Kageyama thinks of him.

(But of course he knows why. He maye not care what Kageyama thinks of _him_ , but it hurts to see Shouyou dealing with the brunt of that aggression in his place.)

“Yeah, but he’s so sarcastic and annoying,” Kageyama says with a grimace. “He’s always acting like he doesn’t care about anything. Why is he even playing volleyball if he hates it so much?”

“He doesn’t hate it,” Kei finds himself saying. “He likes it a lot.”

Kageyama looks at him with a quirked eyebrow.

“He, uh—he told me last night,” Kei says. “During the sleepover.”

“He did, huh?” Kageyama muses, scratching his nose as he thinks. “Well, whatever. I’m just glad that whatever you’re doing to him is making him easier to hang out with, since apparently I can’t get away from him anymore.”

“What I’m doing to him?” Kei nearly squeaks, only smoothing his voice out at the last possible moment. “What does that mean?”

“You’re always hanging out with him during practice and lunch and stuff, ever since the summer training camp,” he elaborates. “Probably because you have a big fat gay crush on him—”

“Wait a second, I didn’t say you could—”

“—but since then he’s gotten a lot better. It must be your fault, right?” Kageyama finishes, flashing Kei a triumphant smirk at the scowl on Kei’s face.

“I didn’t say you could make fun of me,” Kei finishes, not even deining to respond to Kageyama’s original observation. He wouldn’t have poured his heart out to Kageyama if he knew it would come back to bite him in the ass. He has Yamaguchi for that, after all.

Kageyama shrugs. “Buy my silence. For four cartons of milk per day, I will stop.”

Kei stares long and hard at him. “I should have just told Yamaguchi all of this and dealt with the consequences,” he mumbles under his breath. Kageyama lifts his chin and stares down his nose at him.

“My offer stands,” he says innocently.

“I regret all of my life choices,” Kei laments.

“ _You_ regret them?” Kageyama asks incredulously. _“I’m_ the one that has to listen to all of this.”

“You are so annoying,” Kei snaps, glaring up at him where he’s sitting on the bench nearby. Kageyama shrugs again, noncommittally. “It’s not my fault that Tsukishima’s changed, either.”

“He’s gotten more like you,” Kageyama points out, mirroring the observation Sugawara made only a couple of days ago. “He actually talks to people now, for one.”

“He talked to people before, too,” Kei protests weakly.

Kageyama snorts. “Yeah, to make fun of them.”

He has a point, and Kei hates that he has a point. “So what if he’s changed because of me, anyway?”

“It makes him easier to deal with. The after-practice practices help, too,” he says. “I guess I don’t really hate him anymore. He’s still a dumbass, though.”

Kei watches Kageyama ponder something for a few moments, playing with the empty milk carton in his hands as he thinks. Then, settling on something, he looks back at Kei with an intense stare that might rival Shouyou’s but doesn’t have quite the same bone-chilling effect.

“I guess he’s a f– _friend_ now,” he says, as if the word _friend_ physically pains him to say. “I still hate him.”

Kei understands that on a soul-deep level, the idea of being friends with someone he hates. It’s what he used to think of Shouyou until… well. Until they became better friends, and then everything became much, much different.

So he nods because he gets it. “I know the feeling.”

“You do?” Kageyama looks doubtful.

“Yeah, I hate you and we’re still friends, right?” Kei’s lips pull into a sneer at the same time Kageyama’s pull into a deep, angry frown.

“Dumbass!” he shouts, reaching down from the bench to grab at Kei. Kei shuffles away just far enough that his arms can’t reach, and he throws his head back and laughs as Kageyama struggles to come up with more insults and curses to sling at him.

When he gives up and calms down, realizing he won’t be able to tear Kei limb from limb without getting up and deciding he’s too lazy to do so, he settles for giving Kei the stink eye, which Kei gleefully ignores. “So you think of Tsukishima as a friend, then.”

Kageyama nods, his face turning sour like even _he_ dislikes the idea. Kei can’t disagree with the sentiment. They’ve certainly had the most rocky relationship among the first years, and whatever developments they’ve made in the interpersonal department since the beginning of the year have been slow-going and arduous, a treacherous uphill climb that neither of them care to endure.

But Kei thinks back to the easy way the third years were able to talk and get along. He thinks about Yamaguchi and Shouyou, and he thinks about Kageyama. He doesn’t know if he would ever be able to have the same great, open relationship with the rest of them; he’s too closed off, too snarky, too sarcastic. But he likes Yamaguchi. He likes Shouyou. And… well… he doesn’t _hate_ Kageyama. Too much.

Maybe they could all become friends. Maybe they all are already friends.

“I think he likes you, too,” Kei says under his breath, almost hoping that Kageyama won’t hear it.

“What?” he says, because of course he heard it. When Kei looks up at him, there’s a look of horror on his face and he’s drawn back, as if attempting to physically remove himself from the situation.

“As a friend, I mean,” Kei corrects himself.

Kageyama’s face doesn’t change. “I know. That’s horrible. Gross.”

“You know what? You’re right,” Kei agrees with a shrug.

Kageyama nods firmly, and Kei thinks that whatever their weird, twisted relationship is, no matter how antagonistic it is, isn’t that bad.

For the first time, Kei doesn’t hesitate in calling Kageyama his friend.


	16. step 16. training camp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _From: yamayama ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ_  
>  Subject: Re: :/  
> well it’s only natural that you’d want to see shouyou succeed 
> 
> _To: yamayama ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ_  
>  Subject: Re: Re: :/  
> what’s that supposed to mean??????????????? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're in the home stretch now! wowie~

Kei glances at Kageyama’s smug face, and then at Shouyou’s. Both of them piss him off in different ways, but they make up his mind. And so he sprints forward and jumps, lifting his hand up as high as it can to smack against the backboard of the gym’s basketball hoop. By the time he lands solidly on the ground, he’s already looking up to where Yachi is measuring it, and he can feel the anticipation in the room as they wait for his jumping reach to be announced.

“Three hundred and thirty-one centimeters!” Yachi says, and Kei’s face instantly crumbles into a grimace.

Kei trudges back to the rest of the team, ignoring Kageyama’s small celebration off to the side.

“I beat you!” Shouyou says proudly, beaming down at him. And Kei _should_ be annoyed because he hates losing. And he _especially_ hates losing to Shouyou. But the pride and excitement that fills his voice and lights up his face is infectious, and he can’t be upset in the least.

“I’ll beat you sooner or later,” he says, so quietly and so softly that Shouyou doesn’t even hear him. Which is fine, because it wasn’t meant for him to hear. It was a silent vow to himself.

Then Takeda rushes into practice, his hair blown every which way and his glasses askew. “Everyone!” he calls, and the team huddles around him with no other instruction. There’s a big smile on his face when he speaks again, like he can barely contain himself. “You’ve all performed so well this season. And I’ve just received some big news! Kageyama-kun.”

Everyone swivels their head to look at Kageyama. Kageyama just looks around, caught off guard by the sudden attention. “Y–yeah?”

“You’ve been selected to participate in the All-Japan Youth Intensive Training Camp!” Takeda finishes, clapping his hands together as he does.

Kageyama blanches and cocks his head forward, as if he doesn’t believe what he just heard. Kei doesn’t blame him; _he_ hardly believes it either.

“All-Japan?” Kageyama repeats, cocking his head to the side. Everyone seems to let out a collective sigh.

“It’s a five-day training camp in Tokyo,” Takeda explains, still as chipper as ever. “You’ve been selected to go there and train with other national-level youth players!”

“Isn’t that the same camp Ushiwaka went to?” Tanaka asks, leaning in so he can peer at Kageyama, probably searching for a reaction. Then he straightens and claps Kageyama on the back, laughing loudly. “Looks like you’re heading to the big leagues, buddy!”

Kageyama’s face is still unreadable as he cycles through emotions and logic and finally reaches an understanding of the situation. Then his face pulls back into a ridiculously wide and absolutely horrifying grin, and he grips his fist in the air with a loud shout of pride.

Sugawara dabs dramatically at his completely dry eyes, as if he’s a mother watching her children leave for college. “My baby boy’s growing up,” he says in a ridiculously teary voice.

“It seems like just yesterday when we had to kick him and Hinata out of the club because they couldn’t get along,” Sawamura agrees. “Time sure does fly.”

Azumane chuckles nervously behind them, but his head twists between Sawamura and Sugawara like he has no idea what’s gotten into them. When he gives up trying to understand what they’re going on about, he settles on Kageyama with a soft smile. “Congratulations, Kageyama.”

“Thank you!” Kageyama shouts, reaching volumes usually reserved for days when Shouyou is particularly annoying. “I’ll do my best!”

“What about us?” another voice pipes up, and the crowd seems to split down the middle like some old Biblical story and reveals Shouyou staring intently at Takeda, his hands clenched at his sides, presumably to keep him from rushing up and throttling their teacher for more information.

Kei bites his lip, embarrassed at how endearing he finds Shouyou’s excitement to be. Shouyou’s desperately holding back a grin, reflecting the way he’s probably trying to talk himself down, trying not to get his hopes up too high that there’s something special there for him, too. But his eyes are big and expectant and whatever mental gymnastics he’s pulling to keep himself from exploding aren’t exactly working very well.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Sugawara says with a light chuckle. “The All-Japan Youth Intensive Training Camp is for players who are good enough to be on the national youth volleyball team. They draw them out from everywhere in the country, and it’s super selective. There’s no way we’d _all_ get in.”

Sawamura nods. “Yeah, just having Kageyama get in is a huge deal. No one’s going to be calling us a fallen powerhouse anymore.” He’s grinning and there’s a fire that seems to surround him like an aura, as if he fully intends to ride on Kageyama’s coattails and make full use of his name to bring Karasuno into the limelight again. It’s devious, sure, but Kei would never put it past their captain.

“Although, I’m surprised Nishinoya didn’t get an invite,” Sugawara laments with a small huff, blowing his hair off of his face. “Maybe I’m a little biased, though.”

Sawamura looks over to where Nishinoya is Jumping around in celebration around Kageyama, using the king’s shoulders as leverage. “They’re probably looking for mature players with cool heads who can handle playing with new teammates.”

Azumane sighs. “Mature, huh…?”

“Guess it makes sense, when you put it that way,” Sugawara says with a shrug.

Takeda clears his throat awkwardly. “Well, actually,” he begins, and that shuts everyone up. Shouyou even yelps, startled that Takeda is saying anything other than a firm _no_. “Tsukishima-kun, you—”

“Me?” Shouyou squeaks, leaning forward so far that he almost falls over. Kei, too, involuntarily takes a step back, wondering what kind of feat Shouyou might have pulled off to gain recognition (or, perhaps, what _he_ might have done, considering that’s _his_ body and it very well could have happened before the body swap). “I was chosen for the Youth Training Camp?” He looks like he’s about to run up and crush Takeda in a hug, if not for Yamaguchi physically holding him back with a firm hand around his wrist.

Takeda laughs good-naturedly and shakes his head. “No, no, you were all right. The All-Japan camp is for the best of the best, and it’s incredibly selective. We’re lucky that Kageyama gets to represent us.” Shouyou’s face falls and his shoulders slump over. “But you _have_ been invited to join a Miyagi Prefecture training camp held at the same time, Tsukishima-kun!”

Shouyou is a simple person, with no particular bells and whistles. He wears his heart on his sleeve and he doesn’t have the mental capacity to hold grudges against people. And so his disappointment at not being chosen for the All-Japan training camp is quickly squashed and replaced by a sudden rush of excitement, visible in the way he leans forward like the wind has been knocked from him, the way his eyes widen and his forehead creases as his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline, the way his jaw goes slack and then quickly pulls into an open-mouthed grin.

“Really?” he asks, like he can’t even believe it.

“Tsukki!” Yamaguchi exclaims, grabbing both hands around Shouyou’s wrists and bouncing up and down excitedly. “You were chosen for the camp!”

Shouyou can’t stop smiling, his face flushed and glasses sliding down his nose as he celebrates whatever accomplishment that brought him to this point. Kei observes quietly, unable to draw his eyes away. When Shouyou looks over at him, everything about him so intensely bright and open, Kei feels his heart stop.

“Looks like you didn’t get in,” Kageyama says with a snort, jabbing his elbow into Kei’s side. It’s enough to make him turn away from Shouyou and direct a heavy glare up at Kageyama. “Probably because you suck.”

Kei _wants_ to protest, to say he’s gotten better, but he clamps down on that and turns up his nose instead. “I’m just surprised they chose _you_ of all people for the All-Japan camp, since you don’t know the meaning of teamwork.”

Kageyama’s face turns bright red and Kei can see him grinding his teeth. “I’ve gotten better about that!” he shouts, clamping his hand over Kei’s head and pushing down forcefully, ruffling Kei’s hair.

Sugawara chuckles at them somewhere off to the side.

“This is a new camp for freshman only, overseen by Coach Anabara at Johzenji High and Coach Washijo at Shiratorizawa. It’s a first step at raising the overall skill level of the players in Miyagi,” Takeda explains quickly, running through the explanation like he’d practiced it several times on his way to the gym. “Tsukishima-kun was asked to represent Karasuno High at the camp.”

“I knew you had the potential, Tsukishima!” Tanaka barks loudly, patting Shouyou’s back hard and heavy as he cackles loudly, the whoops and hollers echoing through the gym.

“That’s my Tsukki,” Yamaguchi says, reaching up and ruffling Shouyou’s hair. He’s a little bit too short and has to push himself up on the balls of his feet to reach an acceptable ruffling height, but Kei doesn’t really notice how silly it looks over the painful clench of his chest when Yamaguchi calls Shouyou _his_.

And of course that’s stupid, of course there’s no reason he should be upset about that, and of course Yamaguchi’s just pretending and putting on an act because everyone thinks that Shouyou is Kei and Kei is Shouyou, and so naturally they think Yamaguchi is Shouyou’s best friend. But no matter how convoluted and ridiculous their situation is, no matter how much he knows it’s all an act meant to keep up as much normalcy as the three of them can manage, Kei still wants to march over to them and pull Shouyou away and say he’s _his_.

It’s his body, after all.

(That’s not what he means, and that’s not why the pang of jealousy is pounding through his chest, but he ignores that rationale and fervently tells himself otherwise.)

But he manages to keep his feet planted on the floor, manages to keep his hands at his side, manages to keep himself from doing anything he’ll regret.

He catches Shouyou looking at him a few more times that night during practice and after-practice practice, after everyone’s calmed down and stopped celebrating their respective invites. Every time, regardless of what he’s doing or where he is, Kei feels his heart stop in his chest. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, and he hates that Shouyou has this profoundly uncomfortable effect on him. He hates that he wants to march over to wherever Shouyou is standing at any given moment and drag him down to eye level and kiss him hard and passionately and—

No, he’s not thinking about that right now. Preferably, he doesn’t want to be thinking about it at all. Because that kind of wishful thinking, that kind of impulsivity and gross irrationality, is going to destroy him. He prides himself on his logic and his reasoning. Romance? That’s the farthest thing he can get from logic.

Even still, he finds himself staring at Shouyou’s lips just a few too many times.

When practice ends, they all walk home together. It’s too late to hit the library for more pointless research, so they join Kageyama and end up walking until they have to split at an intersection: Shouyou and Yamaguchi head down one road, Kageyama down another, and Kei off in a third direction. He feels that disgusting pang of jealousy again as he watches Shouyou and Yamaguchi walk off together, even for all of his reasoning.

He notes, not for the first time, that he has a rotten personality. Maybe that’s something that’ll never change.

That night, Kei begins the countdown. He doesn’t know _why_ he does it, because there’s no logic behind it. He’s not going to any special camp, but he still feels compelled to mark the days, waiting for the day when Kageyama and Shouyou head off to their respective training camps. It feels almost like they’re leaving him behind. In a way, they are.

And Kei of the past, Kei before the summer training camp at Fukurodani Academy and before the body swap, might not have cared. If he had been chosen for the Miyagi freshman camp, if he were still in his own body, he might have turned it down. But now he’s beaten Shiratorizawa, and he’s worked harder in the past few months than he’s ever worked in his life, and he can’t quell the hunger growling deep inside him.

Now, he wants to improve. He wants to keep up with everyone else.

And he feels left behind.

He wonders if he could tell Yamaguchi about this, if he _should_ tell Yamaguchi about this, if he’s feeling the same things or if he just doesn’t care.

On the third of November, he caves.

_To: yamayama ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ_ __  
_Subject: training camps_ _  
_ _do you kinda feel like you’re being left behind sometimes?_

It doesn’t take long for Yamaguchi to respond. It never does, and Kei appreciates that.

_From: yamayama ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ_ __  
_Subject: Re: training camps_ _  
_ _hmmmmm definitely. i want to be as good as the rest of you, but sometimes i get frustrated because i’m the only one of the first years who isn’t a regular._

_To: yamayama ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: training camps_ _  
_ _you work really hard, it’s no wonder you get frustrated :/_

_From: yamayama ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ_ __  
_SUbject: Re: Re: Re: training camps_ _  
_ _are you projecting onto me or something here?? lol_

_From: yamayama ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: Re: training camps_ _  
_ _you can just say what’s on your mind you know…_

Kei sighs because of course Yamaguchi knows him well enough to call him out on his cryptic bullshit.

_To: yamayama ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ_ __  
_Subject: :/_ _  
_ _i don’t really know how to explain it i guess. maybe i’d feel differently if i was in my own body and i was going to the training camp. but then shouyou wouldn’t be going and that’s also kinda frustrating?_

_From: yamayama ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ_ __  
_Subject: Re: :/_ _  
_ _well it’s only natural that you’d want to see shouyou succeed_

_To: yamayama ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ_ __  
_Subject: Re: Re: :/_ _  
_ _what’s that supposed to mean???????????????_

_From: yamayama ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ_ __  
_Subject: !!!_ _  
_ _nothing! sorry, tsukki!_

_From: yamayama ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ_ __  
_Subject: anyway…_ _  
_ _yes, i feel like you’re all leaving me behind sometimes. but that just motivates me to get better because one day, i’ll be able to stand on that court with all of you. and that’s worth all the effort i’m putting into it right now, you know??_

He supposes Yamaguchi’s right. But he doesn’t get his questions answered, his feelings realized, until a few days later.

It’s during a practice match against Ougiminami, and they’re all impressed and terrified of Kei’s new repertoire of skills. Kei isn’t paying attention to that, though. Sure, he’s proud of himself for his massive improvement in such a short amount of time, but his thoughts are elsewhere.

Particularly, they’re on Shouyou, who seems to have been invigorated by the Miyagi freshman camp. Kei didn’t think that he—that his body—could ever _fly_ , not like Shouyou can, but as he watches Kageyama set a toss to him and Shouyou run up and leap high into the air and spike the ball past the blockers before anyone can even react, Kei changes his mind.

Maybe it’s part of Shouyou’s personality, then, to constantly strive for improvement and defy all reasonable limits and constraints placed upon him, no matter what they may be. It’s inspiring in the most irritating and breathtaking way.

It’s then that he realizes that he’ll _miss_ Shouyou when he goes off to the camp. Which in itself is a ridiculous notion because it’s only a week-long camp and it’s not like he’s even going very far away anyway. There’s no reason for him to _miss_ Shouyou at all.

Except, he thinks, that he’s spent more time with Shouyou since August than he has with anyone else on the team. He’s seen Shouyou more than he’s seen his mother, his brother. He’s spent several nights at his house (at _his_ house), and he’s seen Shouyou sleeping and vulnerable, intense and scary, happy and serious and worried and so many more emotions that Kei can’t even begin to describe because he didn’t even know they existed.

And to be separated from that immense force, who’s dominated his entire life for the past few months, is jarring. In less than a month, he won’t have Shouyou constantly around him. He won’t be able to look to the side and see Shouyou laughing about some dumb joke, or talk in hushed whispers about some weird thing Kageyama just said, or anything else. He’ll be alone.

Even if it’s just for a week, he’ll be alone.

He’ll miss Shouyou.

He carries this wistful feeling through the month until finally, Shouyou snaps one day, when the crisp autumn air is biting at their noses and even their scarves can’t protect them against the cold. They’re walking home from practice when they stop at Sakanoshita Shop for a meat bun, and they’re alone but not talking at _all_ and it’s awkward and Kei doesn’t know what to say so he doesn’t say anything at all.

But Shouyou isn’t speaking, either, just sparing him fleeting glances out of the corner of his eye every so often. His eyebrows are knit together and his nose is wrinkled beneath his glasses, and it would be a cute expression if it didn’t look so confused and _sad_.

Kei tries ignoring it, but really, all he wants to do is grab Shouyou’s face and _make_ him feel better, assure him that everything’s okay, that there’s nothing wrong. But he doesn’t exactly know how to do that. He doesn’t know what to say. So he balls his hands at his sides and stays silent.

They pay for their food and wave goodbye to Coach Ukai, and then Shouyou snaps as they clear the threshold of Sakanoshita and meet the chilling air of Miyagi once again, bending down and pinching Kei’s face between his hands all in one fluid motion. The wool fibers of Shouyou’s gloves tickle his cheek.

“What’s wrong.” It’s not a question, but rather a demand. Kei feels too small under that intense stare, those pursed lips pressed into a thin, concerned line. It feels like Shouyou’s looking directly into his soul, as if to draw out an answer by force.

“What?” Kei says, because he’s confused and worried and he doesn’t know what’s going on.

“You’ve been acting weird all week. Maybe all month,” Shouyou says, glancing to the side as he tries to count the days. “I don’t like it. So tell me what’s wrong and we’ll fix it.”

It’s so open, so honest, and Kei doesn’t know how to react to that.

So he just laughs, reaching his hands up to cup around Shouyou’s. He’s forgotten his own mittens today, and the sudden warmth of Shouyou’s gloves are comforting.

“What?” Shouyou asks with a pout. “What’s so funny?”

“I don’t know,” Kei answers honestly. “Your face, maybe?” He giggles again, and it comes out softer and quieter than he’s ever heard himself laugh before.

“Hey!” Shouyou protests, pressing his hands together harder on Kei’s cheeks until his lips are puckering out in a fish face. “Your face looks just as funny now!”

“That’s not what I meant,” Kei says, even if it’s hard with his lips pushed together. Shouyou is tactful enough to relax his grip and drop his hands, though Kei is hyperaware of every cell in his body when Shouyou flips his palms around so that suddenly they’re holding hands under the flickering fluorescent light of the shop.

“Then what _did_ you mean?” Shouyou asks with a pout.

“It’s just… weird to see you worrying about me.” Kei shrugs a little. “About anything.”

“I worry about plenty of things,” Shouyou counters huffily.

“Not seriously,” Kei says, and the glare he receives is convincing enough to have him backtracking, if only a little. “I mean like, you get anxious about games and stuff, but you don’t _worry_ about things. You’re always so confident in yourself and others. Even when Kageyama was messing up his weird stopping tosses, you still knew he’d get it down. Or when Ushiwaka was so convinced that Shiratorizawa would win the Interhigh Prelims, you stood your ground and insisted that it would be us.”

“Yeah?” Shouyou says, and it’s matter-of-fact like there’s nothing amazing about it at all. “But those things happened.”

“But you didn’t know they would at the time.”

“Of course I did,” Shouyou says, and his eyes are scarily intense again. Under their gaze, Kei feels his heart speed up and his breath catch again.

“There’s no way you could have known,” he breathes out, much more quietly and much less sharply than he’d intended.

“I knew there was a possibility of failure,” Shouyou says, never once breaking eye contact. “But there’s no use focusing on that. I had to believe we would succeed. There’s no point in getting worried about things you have no control over.”

Kei swallows thickly. “I guess you’re right.”

“But that’s why I’m worried right now,” Shouyou continues, leaning down a little. “Because I can’t control what you’re feeling, but I still want to help.”

Yes he can, Kei wants to say, because everything Shouyou says, everything he does, sends Kei spiraling down further into this gooey mess of feelings he doesn’t know how to handle. But he can’t say that.

“So you have to tell me what’s wrong,” Shouyou says, demanding again. And it sounds so confident, like he knows Kei will tell him, like he hasn’t even considered any other possibility. But that’s just how Shouyou functions: never worrying about failure and always working hard to make sure things fall in his favor.

“I guess…” Kei begins, but he realizes that every single possible answer he can give is far too embarrassing for him to say out loud. His face heats up behind his scarf, from the tips of his ears to his cheeks. “I’ll, uh—”

“Yeah?” Shouyou says, leaning even _further_ in, listening intently for the answer.

“Well, you—you’re going to the Miyagi camp and—”

“Oh! I get it!” Shouyou says loudly, reaching some kind of conclusion. Kei doesn’t want to hear the rest of this. “You wanted to go to the camp instead!”

What.

“What?” Kei voices this thoughts because there’s nothing else running through his mind, no other words he can grab onto.

“You were the one who was supposed to go to the camp,” Shouyou says, looking a little sheepish. He scrapes the toe of his shoe against the sidewalk. “So you’re probably mad that I’m going instead, right?”

Kei doesn’t know how to process a response, so he just shakes his head a little.

“I mean, of course _I_ want to go!” Shouyou says quickly. “But this was supposed to be _your_ opportunity to train with a bunch of other really great players.” Shouyou sighs and wiggles around a little. “To be honest, I’m kind of jealous of you.”

“Jealous of me?” Kei asks, not sure he believes what he’s hearing.

“Well, yeah.” Shouyou blushes lightly, a slight dusting of pink that looks like it could just be from the cold. “I wasn’t supposed to be invited anywhere. I only get to go to the training camp because I’m supposed to be _you_ right now.”

Kei shakes his head more fervently now. “No, you probably got into the camp because of what Shiratorizawa’s coach saw during the finals,” he insists. “Or what Johzenji’s coach saw during our match against them.”

Shouyou hums distantly. “You think so?” He doesn’t sound convinced.

Kei’s face softens and his chest tightens, and all he wants to do is comfort Shouyou and assure him of his immense talent and skill. He gathers his courage and decides to go for it. “You—”

“But that doesn’t matter,” Shouyou says in a rush, cutting Kei off before he can say anything. “If you’re not upset that you’re not going to the freshie camp, then why _are_ you upset? You never answered my question.”

Kei would much rather be trying to console Shouyou. “Oh, um, I just, well…”

Shouyou looks at him expectantly, but his mouth is pressed into a line, biting down on it to prevent him from interrupting again. Kei wishes he would.

“You’re… going to be gone for a whole week,” he starts awkwardly, rubbing his thumbs up and down Shouyou’s gloved hand absentmindedly. “It’ll be the longest we’ve been apart since, well, you know.”

Shouyou blinks once, then twice. “Are you… are you saying you’ll _miss_ me?”

Kei wonders if he _really_ had to say it out loud. But, as he’s observed way too many times before, Shouyou lays all of his emotions out in the open and has no filter for anything he says. So naturally, it’s only to be expected that he’ll burst out with whatever’s on his mind. So he just groans a little, low and throaty and barely loud enough to hear, and nods, his face heating up even more.

Then Shouyou’s face splits into a wide grin, and he squeezes Kei’s hands tightly. “You’re going to miss me! You’re such a softy!”

“I am not,” Kei protests over the rapid beating of his heart in his throat.

“You just said it! No take-backsies!” He cackles, and somehow even that ugly sound is music to Kei’s ears, a masterful orchestral piece of tinkling bells and bellowing strings.

“Fine!” Kei admits, puffing out his cheeks with a huff. “I’ll miss you. But you better just hope I don’t replace you with someone else while you’re gone.”

Shouyou’s eyes bug out of his skull. “You better not! You can’t even be yourself around anyone else!”

“I can do that with Yamaguchi,” Kei says. He wants to fold his arms over his chest defiantly, but he’s once again reminded that they’re still holding hands. He wonders why Shouyou hasn’t let go. Kei certainly isn’t about to be the one to do that.

“Boo!” Shouyou sticks out his tongue and leans in real close, almost close enough for him to lick him. Kei pulls back out of instinct, yanking one of his hands free in his sudden fear and clamping it over his mouth. Shouyou’s shoulders slump and his eyebrows draw together in an adorable pout, but then his face smooths out and his eyes glisten with humor. Kei realizes what that means too late, and suddenly his hand is wet and clammy as Shouyou drags his tongue across his palm.

“Gross!” Kei shouts, pulling his hand back and rubbing it exaggeratedly across his coat. “You moron!”

Shouyou has a shit-eating grin on his face, and Kei wants to slap it off of him. But it also looks cute and he looks so _proud_ of himself and it also makes Kei want to kiss it off of him, to fluster him as much as he flusters Kei.

He does neither of those things and instead wipes the rest of Shouyou’s spit on his pant leg and mumbles under his breath. Somehow through all of that, Shouyou never once lets go of Kei’s other hand, and they continue that way even after they head back toward home, right until they split off at the intersection.

Kei tries not to question it.

He questions it when he catches Shouyou looking at him again during practice, and after practice, and before practice, and when they eat lunch together. Whenever Kei tries to sneak in looks of his own, he finds Shouyou already staring at him, only to look away hurriedly when Kei catches him in the act.

There’s only a week left before the camp, and Kei doesn’t know what to do about those looks.

He figures out that he doesn’t have to do anything about them, because Shouyou bounds up to him after practice on Monday with a big dopey smile meant just for him on his face. “Hinata!” he calls, stopping just before he crashes into him with the full force of his one hundred ninety centimeters. There’s no one in the club room by then, but Shouyou has learned by now how to play it safe. It’s a relief, in a lot of ways.

“Hm?” Kei says, not giving him the satisfaction of looking up at him because he’s sure that if he does, he’ll blush again. It’s getting harder to face him, now that he’s so close to losing him.

(Or, not losing him, he keeps telling himself. He’s only going away for a week. His brain doesn’t want to listen to that, though.)

“Sleep over at my house this weekend!” Shouyou demands, and there doesn’t seem to be any room for argument in his tone.

“Why?” Kei asks flatly because if he draws out the conversation before he inevitably gives in and agrees, he can listen to Shouyou talk just a little bit longer.

“Well, since you said you’d _miss_ me when I left for the camp—”

“I will not,” Kei protests, but Shouyou ignores him.

“I thought we could spend the day before together!” he finishes with a flourish, stretching his arms out emphatically and performing little jazz hands, as if he’s announcing that Kei just won the lottery.

“And why would I want to do that?” Kei asks with one eyebrow raised. It’s a total front, he knows, and he doesn’t even know if the cool mask he’s wearing is good enough to cover up just how _badly_ he wants to say yes, but he still wants to play along, still wants to hear Shouyou speak more before bouncing off to someone else.

“Because you like me!” Shouyou says, and Kei blanches. It takes several breaths to recover from that one, several moments of calming himself down and reassuring himself that he’s not talking about _that_ kind of like. “We’re friends, and you’ll miss me! You said it yourself!”

Kei hates that he’s holding that over him because now he can’t refute it. So he sighs long and exaggerated in a last show of resistance and says, “Fine, I’ll sleep over at your house this weekend.”

Shouyou’s smile is a hundred watts and Kei thinks this is all he’s ever wanted.


	17. step 17. change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe he should cancel the sleepover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's done!!!! oh my god,, i can't believe i only started this three months ago! this project has certainly helped me improve my writing so much and it's helped reshape how i view my own writing, and i'm so glad i took this challenge aaa;;
> 
> thank you so much for sticking with me through this fic, and for supporting my writing! i appreciate every single hit, comment, kudos, and bookmark y'all have given me. i hope the final chapter can live up to your expectations as well!

The rest of the week drags on because now he’s anticipating something he wants so badly. The hours seem to crawl slower and slower when only yesterday they flew by, and every minute he checks his clock settles a pit lower in his stomach. Tuesday is grueling, and Wednesday is worse. He thinks that perhaps he should be grateful that time is moving so slowly. The slower it goes, the longer, theoretically, he has with Shouyou. But it also means that there’s a longer time between now and the time he’ll get to spend alone with Shouyou again.

He wonders if he should be _allowed_ to be alone with Shouyou again.

Because everything’s getting harder to keep in. Because every smile sends his heart fluttering like it’s trying to break free of its cage and leap out. Because every word he says drips over Kei like honey. Because every move he makes captivates Kei and shuts him down so that the only thing he can see, the only thing he can process, is Shouyou.

When Kageyama yells at him for missing yet another spike because he’s too busy staring at Shouyou, he thinks that maybe sleeping over at his house will turn into a terrible thing. Maybe he’ll end up breaking, spilling his entire heart out for him to hear.

He wonders if that would be such a bad thing, and then quickly reaffirms that _yes_ , it would be awful.

He has to keep this inside him, because there’s no telling _what_ Shouyou really thinks of him. There’s no telling what feelings Shouyou harbors, if they’re friends or something a little different. And Kei would rather sit in uncertainty, never knowing the truth, than to be rejected outright. He doesn’t think he could handle it.

Maybe he should cancel the sleepover.

When he goes to confront Shouyou during lunch on Thursday, he doesn’t make it quite as far as he’d hoped.

He walks right up to Shouyou, who’s passing a volleyball back and forth with Yamaguchi in the courtyard. Neither of them are paying enough attention to notice Kei arrive, but in a way that gives him confidence because he won’t have to look at Shouyou’s expectant face before he breaks the news to him. “Tsukishima, I think that—”

“Hinata!” Shouyou says, dropping the ball and spinning around to face him. Yamaguchi picks the volleyball up before smiling a little greeting, as well. “You should play with us!”

And the words die on his tongue because he has no idea how to refuse Shouyou anymore. So instead of doing what he came here to do, he nods and gets in position to receive the ball without another word. Shouyou smiles again and Kei’s heart melts.

Maybe he can’t do this sleepover, maybe he’ll mess up and end up destroying their friendship with his feelings, but he also can’t say no. He’s completely lost that ability.

And so Friday comes and goes, and Kei still can’t say no. He tries again after practice, but the words catch with his breath when Shouyou gushes about how excited he is for the sleepover.

On Saturday, he goes to a music store with Yamaguchi, and Kei can’t help but wish that Shouyou is there with them.

He pulls out a CD from the rack and Yamaguchi gives him a weird look. “Don’t you already have that album?”

“Yeah, but…” Kei hums to himself. “What kind of music do you think Shouyou listens to?”

Yamaguchi plucks the CD out of his hand and Kei glances up, indignant. He forgets whatever he was going to retort with, though, when he sees the knowing smile on Yamaguchi’s face. “You sure think about Shouyou a lot, don’t you?”

Kei growls and snatches the CD back, walking away from him as quickly as his tiny legs can carry him.

He ends up buying the album.

Sunday morning is spent meticulously planning an outfit that Shouyou most likely won’t even notice, but it’s better to busy himself with that than to sit on his bed with his head in his hands and worry about the sleepover. Maybe it’s not too late to cancel.

But of course it’s too late to cancel, and even if he wanted to he’s already tried several times. He can’t. He wants to go too badly, wants to see Shouyou in that vulnerable, quiet state again, when he’s talking about his sister and his family and his future late at night when everyone else is asleep, when his voice is in a half-whisper like he’s letting Kei in on a secret meant only for his ears.

The day passes by in a blur of fantasies and daydreams because apparently Kei is the type to daydream now. When he’s finally outside his house, though, reality comes crashing back into him and everything comes into crystal clear focus. All of the anxiety he’s been harboring and carrying leave him with one final exhale before he knocks on the front door.

It’s the first time he’s been back at his house in over a month, and it sends a thrill of anticipation down Kei’s spine. It’s been so long since he’s seen his mom. He misses her.

Shouyou opens the door with a wide grin on his face, and he bounces out of the way without so much as a hello to let Kei pass through.

“You’re here!” he says, holding the door open patiently even while his entire gait is oozing energy and restlessness from every pore on his body.

“I’m here,” Kei responds in kind, shuffling through the door and slipping off his shoes. He can already hear the sounds of metal clanking in the kitchen, and it’s like music to his ears. His mom is humming softly and there’s low chatter from another voice at the table, and Kei can’t help the smile that tugs at his lips.

“Oh, Akiteru came home for the weekend!” Shouyou says with a knowing glance toward Kei, shifting from side to side excitedly. “He said we could play volleyball later, if you want!”

“It’s so late, though,” Kei says.

“We usually stay up until ten or eleven practicing together anyway!” Shouyou protests quietly so as not to disturb the conversation in the kitchen.

“Do you even _do_ your homework?” Kei grumbles, wondering if he’s going to return to his body only to find that he’s failing all of his classes.

“Yes!” Shouyou says, a little too quickly. Kei doesn’t buy it. “Um… Akiteru helps me sometimes, too. And Tadashi, since we’re in the same class. Sometimes he lets me copy his homework!”

“You mean all the time,” Kei corrects, knowing full well the extent of Yamaguchi’s willpower, especially against someone as insistent and ceaseless as Shouyou. There’s absolutely no way Yamaguchi would turn him down unless he truly couldn’t help him. “Meanwhile, I’m doing all I can to keep your grades up. This is such an unequal trade.”

Shouyou pinches his nose and frowns. “Like you even think my homework’s hard. You probably finish it in like, ten minutes or something.”

It’s true, but Kei neither confirms nor denies it. He just shrugs, earning him a growl from Shouyou, and he pushes past him gently into the kitchen to see his mom, with her graying blonde hair and the barest hint of wrinkles on her face. She looks graceful as always, her tall, spindly form swaying as she cooks. Kei feels his mouth dry up as he watches her, and he almost forgets to greet her when she looks his way.

“Shouyou-kun!” she says kindly, bowing her head a little in greeting. “It’s good to see you. Kei has been excited about this sleepover, since he’ll be away for a while.”

“H–hi, Tsukishima-san, pardon my intrusion,” he stammers through the lump in his throat as Shouyou comes in through the archway, waving a lazy hand at his mom and Akiteru at the table.

“Akiteru!” he says brightly, the already present smile widening on his face. “We’re still playing volleyball later, right?”

Akiteru laughs and nods. “Sure, if Hinata-kun wants to join.”

Shouyou nods without looking back at Kei, taking the lead before he can even protest to it. Kei sighs and accepts his fate. It’s not like he’s particularly _opposed_ to practicing with his brother. He wonders if he’s improved from the last time he saw him.

“Eat dinner first,” his mom says, sending a scolding look toward all three boys. Akiteru and Shouyou look away sheepishly, scratching the backs of their necks in tandem, and Kei wonders if maybe Shouyou was meant to be related to him, if maybe somehow he and Kei had switched bodies at birth and the universe just rectified their situation all those months ago. They’re definitely two birds of a feather.

But he clears his head of that thought because he doesn’t want to get into any theoreticals here. It’s already too complicated thinking about these things, anyway. Instead, he helps his mom set the table, brushing off a pointed compliment that he’s so helpful while she glares daggers at Akiteru.

Even with Akiteru home, dinner is quiet. It’s typical for his house, Kei thinks, but he’s grown accustomed to the loud family conversations at the Hinata household. The television isn’t even turned on, and Kei feels weird, exposed in a way, like everyone’s secretly waiting for him to strike up a conversation.

But he doesn’t; he never has, and he never intends to. He’s always relied on someone else for dinner table conversations, whether it’s Shouyou or one of the other Hinatas, like Natsu talking about Magical Kokona anime or gushing about sports or whichever friend she’s decided is her “best friend for life!” on any given day. Kei is a listener, a passive recipient of conversation who’s content to nod along and give minimal feedback while someone else yammers on about their day or their thoughts or their feelings.

Tonight, the table is quiet.

When the food is cleared, he helps clean up, even if Shouyou wrestles the plates and dishes out of his hands in his attempt to be a good son.

“I’m not going to lose to you!” Shouyou practically yells as he tugs on the bowl clenched in Kei’s fists.

“It’s not a competition!” Kei grits back, trying his hardest to keep it in his hands.

“But mom is going to scold me if I don’t help out!” Shouyou whines, tugging again and almost—but not quite—getting Kei to release it.

“That’s not my problem,” Kei says with a final yank, and Shouyou lets the porcelain slip through his fingers. Kei, victorious, marches to the sink and rinses it in the warm water, taking the sponge to it and cleaning it thoroughly before setting it on the counter to dry.

He turns back toward the table only to be bumped to the side by Shouyou, who’s smirking down at him, challenging him to do better. Kei meets his gaze, refusing to lose, and bumps his hip back against Shouyou, who stumbles to the side and almost drops the plate in his hand.

“Don’t break anything!” his mom yells as she catches on to what they’re doing.

“Sorry!” they intone together, neither actually sorry. Kei can tell by the tiny smile on Shouyou’s lips and the squint of his eyes.

His mom just shakes her head and continues clearing the table, and they turn back to cleaning the dishes as well as they can. Then Shouyou bumps Kei’s hip again and his mom shoots them a dirty look.

“Go play, _please_ ,” she begs, pointing forcefully out of the kitchen. Shouyou slumps over in a pout and Kei snickers under his breath, but they both make their way out of the kitchen without any other fuss.

Akiteru is already waiting for them, his volleyball shoes tied on and a ball in hand when they walk out into the hall. He’s standing by the door with a smile, like he can’t wait to play against them.

“I hear you’re the decoy middle blocker at Karasuno,” Akiteru says to Kei as he puts on his shoes. Kei just nods and waits for Shouyou, who’s lagging only a little behind as he listens to their conversation. “Kei told me that you’re like the new Little Giant.”

Kei’s mouth flies open and he wonders what other _lies_ Shouyou has been feeding his brother. “I… wouldn’t say that exactly—”

“He’s the best!” Shouyou exclaims, wrapping his arm around Kei’s shoulders. “He jumps super high and he’s always running around the court. He may be short, but he works really hard!”

Kei can only stare as Shouyou rambles on, disbelief fogging his brain. He wonders if this is how Shouyou is with everyone, always talking himself up and making him sound better than he really is.

(He’s definitely not _bad_ at volleyball, but this is ridiculous.)

Akiteru just listens to it all, solemnly nodding along. “That sounds like the Little Giant, all right,” he muses. “He was pretty short, but he still managed to become our most powerful ace.”

Kei’s face falls at the mention of the ace, and memories swirl around him and grip at his chest. It’s getting a little harder to breathe, and even if he was so happy to see Akiteru earlier, all he wants to do is run and hide in his room. Maybe it’s not too late to go back home to Shouyou’s house. He could fake a stomach bug or something and—

Shouyou’s arms squeeze him tighter, and Kei blinks up at him, surprised. “You’ve gotten a lot better too, Akiteru!” he says brightly. “Ever since we started playing together.”

Akiteru sputters and folds his arms across his chest. “W–well, I don’t want to lose to my little brother.”

“But you’re still improving,” Shouyou says. “You’re a regular on your team, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am,” Akiteru says, quirking up a funny smile. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Shouyou winks down at Kei, a little smile playing on his lips. “It’s nothing. I was just showing you off to my friend.”

“Oh.” Akiteru laughs awkwardly, running his hands through his hair. “It’s not that special. I’m no ace or anything.”

“But you don’t have to be the ace to be important to the team,” Kei finds himself saying before he can stop himself. He thinks he’s been acting as Shouyou for far too long. “I’m a decoy, and that doesn’t really sound cool, but I help the ace score points because of that. What matters is that I’m helping the team win, and that we can keep playing in games because of me.”

Shouyou’s eyes are glossy and bright when he looks down at Kei again, but he’s still smiling.

“I guess you’re right.” And the chuckle the comes out this time is softer and more light-hearted. “I’m a wing spiker, by the way.”

“Middle blocker,” Kei responds, and there’s a tiny smile resting on his lips that he can’t force down no matter how hard he tries.

“Oh, I know. Kei has told me _all_ about you,” Akiteru says with a wry grin, giving a sidelong glance toward Shouyou. Kei follows that gaze and sees Shouyou go rigid, his face blooming with red.

“A–A–Akiteru! What are you trying to imply?” Shouyou stutters. He notices, then, that his arm is still wrapped tightly around Kei and he drops it with a horrified squeal.

Akiteru just throws back his head and laughs, grabbing at his belly as if it’ll burst open with the force of his hoots. When he’s calm enough to face them again, he wipes a tear from his eye and says, “Nothing at all!” But his face is vibrant with amusement and obviously he’s a big fat liar, and so Shouyou puckers his face and grumbles unintelligibly under his breath. He grabs the ball from out of Akiteru’s hands and passes the ball to Kei, not once looking at either of them.

Kei watches the exchange with some level of uncertainty because he’s not sure what to make of it. Obviously Akiteru is implying some kind of romantic feelings between them, but Kei has no idea if he even has a basis to work on, or if he’s just teasing his brother for the hell of it. Kei assumes the latter, because he can’t risk getting his hopes up too high, lest he fly too close to the sun.

But the joke is enough to cut off any conversation between them, and they continue passing the volleyball between them quietly, though Akiteru’s eyes keep darting between Shouyou and Kei occasionally, as if he’s trying to figure something out. It’s different from That Look that he’s so used to getting, that look that’s trying to figure out why they’re acting so different. At the same time, though, it’s not so dissimilar, either. Akiteru’s trying to extract some kind of information without prying, but Kei can’t tell what, exactly, it is.

He hopes it has nothing to do with their love lives.

(He hopes it has everything to do with their love lives.)

When it’s about ten o’clock, Akiteru decides that he’s exhausted, and he stops the ball with a receive that goes straight up, then back down directly into his arms. He yawns and stretches exaggeratedly, preluding his words with suspenseful drama. “I think it’s about time we hit the hay, right? It’s pretty late.”

Shouyou whines wordlessly, but Kei nods his head. “Yeah, we should get ready for bed. You still haven’t finished your homework, Tsukishima.”

“Neither have you!” Shouyou objects, sticking a finger in Kei’s face.

Kei pushes that finger to the side and stares up blankly at him. “Yes, I have. I did it yesterday.”

Shouyou’s jaw drops like he’s been betrayed, and Kei can almost hear his heart break.

“I’ll be using the bath first, then,” Kei says with a smirk, waking ahead of both Shouyou and his brother into the house. “Do your homework while you’re waiting on me.”

He hears Shouyou growl, but it cuts off when Akiteru asks, “Have you been slacking on your homework, Kei? What about college?”

Kei just laughs and takes off his shoes, walking through familiar halls toward the bathroom. It’s nice, he thinks, to navigate the house freely again, like he lives here again. He’s gotten so used to Shouyou’s house that he almost doesn’t recognize the pictures on the walls, the cracks on the floor, the unique features that make this house his home.

After the bath he returns to his room (he catches himself almost calling it _Shouyou’s_ room and wonders again when they’ll return to normal) and finds Shouyou splayed out across the table, mumbling nonsense into a textbook. His eyes are glazed over and he looks half dead, and Kei wonders if the homework finally managed to break him.

He debates poking him.

But he takes another step into the room and Shouyou shoots up, startled at the sudden presence. “I’m awake!” he shouts, waving his pencil in the air wildly. “I promise!”

Kei just hums and jerks his thumb behind him. “I’m out of the bath,” he says. “It’s all yours.”

Shouyou’s entire face softens and he looks up gratefully at him, scrambling away from the homework as fast as he possibly can. “I’ll be back soon!” he calls over his shoulder before disappearing into the bathroom.

WIth a heavy sigh, he sits down at the table and scans the homework, filling out the answers he knows off the top of his head. He _shouldn’t_ be doing Shouyou’s homework for him, but he reasons with himself that it’s still technically his homework and his grade riding on its completion. He’ll give Yamaguchi a break this time.

Shouyou comes back about half an hour later, and Kei has already pulled out both of the futons and laid them out. He’s reading one of the books from his shelf, nestled up with his back against the wall as he skims over the pages quickly. It’s something he’s read before, so he knows the gist of the plot, but it was so long ago that he’s forgotten some details. It’s a nice refresher, and it gives him a sense of normalcy, like he can pretend that everything’s okay and he’s not in someone else’s body.

It’s nice to be home.

“I’m back,” Shouyou announces as the door slides open, but his voice is quiet. It’s unlike him, and Kei has to do a double take to make sure that it’s still Shouyou in there, since he’s usually so loud and boisterous and obnoxious even when he’s trying to be quiet. But here he is, with soft eyes to match his soft voice and Kei thinks it’s very, very weird.

“Hey,” he says gruffly, his voice a little strained from it’s disuse in the past thirty or so minutes.

“What are you reading?” Shouyou asks, dropping to the floor and crawling over to where Kei is resting.

“It’s some adventure novel,” Kei explains. “Like mummies and pharaohs and stuff. My mom got it for me a few years ago when I told her I wanted to be an archaeologist.”

“I thought you wanted to dig up dinosaur bones,” Shouyou says with a wink.

“Yeah, but most people think of Egypt when they hear archaeology.” Kei shrugs. “I can’t blame her. And it’s an interesting novel, anyway. Kind of like Indiana Jones.”

“Ooh,” Shouyou coos, leaning over the book and dropping his head down into Kei’s field of vision to read the words on the page. “It sounds fun!”

“Do you even know how to read?” Kei asks because he can’t resist.

Shouyou lifts his head up to stick out his tongue. “Yes, I can read!”

Time seems to stop then. They’re so close right now, and Kei can feel his heart beating in his ears. Kei is positive Shouyou can hear it, but if he can he makes no indication of it.

Kei’s breath catches in his chest, and he ends up gawking when he parts his lips to try to breathe in. He feels small, dwarfed in comparison to Shouyou, who’s still leaning over him with wide, wondrous eyes that seem to take in every detail in front of him.

Then Shouyou leans back and Kei wants to scream, to tell him not to go, but he still can’t breathe and that means he can’t speak either.

But he doesn’t go. He turns around and plops down right next to him against the wall, still staring at him like he’s searching for something. He’s pressed up against Kei’s side, and Kei lets himself wonder if he sat so close to him on purpose.

“The book sounds interesting,” Shouyou says suddenly, and Kei jumps, startled by the noise.

“Yeah, it—it is,” Kei says, nodding woodenly in response.

Shouyou surprises him by grabbing the book and slowly lifting it out of his hands, putting it down gingerly at his side. Kei watches the motion, seeing but not really believing it. He doesn’t know what’s happening right now, has no capacity for understanding it, can’t even begin to comprehend what—

“Kei,” Shouyou says, and it’s a refreshing sound, like raindrops falling onto his skin. “Are you okay?”

He thinks that he probably looks like a mess, with rosy red cheeks rigid posture and a total inability to function. “I–I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Shouyou asks with a frown, and it looks _cute_ and Kei falls further. He leans in as if to inspect him, and he’s _too close_ again.

“Yeah—uh, yeah.” He can barely comprehend anything past Shouyou. He doesn’t know if that counts as _fine_ or not.

“Hm.” Shouyou’s still frowning when he pulls back, and Kei wants so desperately to be close to him that he follows, abandoning all sense or reason.

He has one hand on the wall and the other on Shouyou’s shoulder, and at some point he’d pushed himself off the floor so he’s on his knees, kneeling in front of him.

“Kei—? What are you—?” Shouyou cuts himself off when he makes eye contact with him, and he flushes a deep red. He seems to back up against the wall further, but not as if he’s trying to get away. If anything, Kei thinks his head tilts closer to him.

Kei takes it as a good sign, and so he leans up (because even here, on the floor, he’s still too short) and presses his lips to Shouyou’s.

He’s never thought about what it might be like to kiss himself, to feel his own lips pucker and part. Now, though, he finds he doesn’t really care. He doesn’t care what Shouyou looks like on the outside because his eyes are closed and he can imagine curly orange strands of hair and soft brown eyes and thin shoulders. Because it’s _Shouyou_ in there, in that body, and that’s what matters.

When he feels Shouyou pull away, Kei is too afraid to open his eyes, too afraid that he’ll see disappointment or regret pulling at his features. Too afraid that Shouyou will say they shouldn’t have done that. That kissing him was a mistake.

So he stays like that for a few seconds more, eyes squeezed shut and lips puckered because his anxiety is eating away at him and oh, no, he should _not_ have done that, not without asking first, not now, maybe not at all. He convinces himself that Shouyou will be mad, that he’ll yell and stomp his foot and leave him, not even caring that they’re cosmically bound to each other, and it’ll be all Kei’s fault. Because Kei ruins what he touches, and he has a terrible personality, and he shouldn’t be allowed to—can’t—

“Kei.”

The voice cuts off his train of thought far too abruptly, and his head is spinning and he feels dizzy when it speaks again.

“Kei, look.”

It’s urgent and compelling and Kei wants to obey but it’s taking everything in his power not to throw up and—

Hands grab his arms and shake him violently. “Kei!”

His eyes snap open and the first thing he sees is orange hair and brown irises and dilated pupils leaning in way too close to him faint golden flecks that took him too long to discover dancing in the irises. He’s still being shaken, and he feels something hard and smooth running down his nose. Glasses? When he notices the thick black frames, he confirms that they’re definitely glasses.

“Kei, we’re back!” Kei realizes why he wasn’t able to place the voice before, and it’s because it’s boyish and excited and high-pitched in a way he’s not used to anymore. But it’s silky and smooth and it sounds so much better hearing it than producing it.

The orange hair leans back, and Kei can see more of the face, from his unruly eyebrows to his broad nose and smooth cheeks and thin lips and it’s like looking at a familiar stranger, someone he knew well in the distant past but has fallen out of touch with in recent years.

“We’re…” Kei mumbles, shock entirely overcoming him. He glances down absentmindedly at himself, and he sees big hands and a long torso and even longer legs. When he tilts his further head down, he no longer sees shaggy orange hair in his peripheral vision.

“We switched back!” Shouyou gushes, grabbing onto Kei’s arms again. He’s suddenly super aware of how small Shouyou’s hands are now, how they barely wrap around half of his biceps.

He also becomes super aware of how close Shouyou is, from the way his head is tilted so close to his lips to the knee that’s pushed between Kei’s legs for balance, the same provocative position he himself had been in not a minute ago. His breath hitches and he feels his face heat up, but he doesn’t push him away. He can’t.

“We switched back,” he mumbles, reaching one shaky hand up to feel his chest, feel his face, feel his hair. It’s so unfamiliar now. After having been in Shouyou’s _tiny_ body for almost three months, he almost doesn’t recognize his own.

“That’s what I said!” Shouyou says, his voice breaking in his enthusiasm. “Was it the—the, uh—”

He breaks off suddenly, his face turning as red as his hair, and he squeaks a little, burying his face in his hands.

“The kiss?” Kei supplies, and Shouyou nods, still hiding behind his hands. “It must have been.”

“Oh…” Shouyou says, his voice muffled. “Oh, no.”

“What?” Kei’s heart spikes with worry and his mind starts racing again. “Did you not—d–did you not like it? I’m, uh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“No!” Shouyou says, flinging his hands away from his face to quickly cover Kei’s mouth with them, pressing his fingers into his lips to smother whatever apologies he might have continued with. “That’s not what I meant. I, well, I… I liked it…”

He trails off, voice lowering into a mumble, looking off to the side as if he can’t even look at Kei right now. Kei reaches up and pries Shouyou’s fingers from his lips. “Then why did you say ‘oh, no?’”

Shouyou jerks and stares at Kei, only to look away again just a second later, too embarrassed to face him. “I meant, um! Well, if it’s the kiss then… doesn’t that means we couldn’t… you—you know… kiss each other, um, again?”

That… wasn’t what Kei was expecting to hear, but he can’t say that it’s unwelcome. It’s hard to wrap his mind around nonetheless.

But when he does, he doesn’t answer Shouyou’s concerns in words. Instead, he holds his breath and leans forward and closes the small gap between them, pressing his lips into Shouyou’s again. It’s shorter this time, but less tentative, less shy.

And when he pulls back and finds he can breathe again, he’s still facing Shouyou, who’s still short with an annoying mop of hair and wide, innocent eyes that look up at Kei like he holds the answers to the universe.

“We didn’t switch back.” And then slowly, a smile spreads across his face, and he launches himself at Kei, dragging him to the floor, his arms wrapped tightly around his neck in an excited, reckless embrace. “We didn’t switch back!”

“We’re fixed,” Kei says, and the words sit heavy on his tongue—on _his_ tongue—like they have the ability to cement reality. He breathes out a laugh, soft and low and disbelieving, and then he realizes what Shouyou had said, what he had _done_. “You… you just…”

Shouyou shifts above him, blinking down at him. His elbows dig into Kei’s sides, but it doesn’t hurt, and he doesn’t want him to move. “I… what?”

“You said you wanted to kiss me again.” The words come out as quiet as a breath, low and astonished as he stares up at Shouyou. He’s gotten used to looking up at Shouyou since they first switched bodies, but this… this is so much different, in so many ways.

Shouyou’s ears turn pink again, but he smiles through it. “Yeah, I do.” And he does. He leans down and peppers Kei’s cheek with soft pecks, trailing down his neck and stopping at the collar of his shirt. He smiles into the fabric, and Kei can feel his every move with hypersensitive awareness.

“Does this count as a confession?” Kei asks when Shouyou slows down long enough for him to catch his breath, and Shouyou giggles into his skin, shaking Kei with the motions.

“Yeah, it does,” he says. “Does this count as a confession, too?” He pushes himself up and presses another kiss into Kei’s lips, long and hard and passionate and Kei feels like he’s falling.

(He is.)

He nods because he doesn’t trust his own voice, and Shouyou laughs again, a natural, beautiful melody that captivates and enthralls Kei. It sounds so much more genuine, so much more beautiful, when Shouyou is the one controlling his own voice, when Kei has the luxury and the pleasure to revel in it.

“Yeah, it does,” and Kei surprises himself with his own soft voice, lower than he was expecting. He frowns at the gravelly hum that comes from his throat, the hard edge to his words that comes naturally and without effort, and it almost shocks him that he sounds sarcastic, even when he’s being sincere, soft, emotional far past a point that he’s used to.

“Tadashi is gonna get a kick out of this one,” Shouyou says, giggling again.

“I think he already knows way too much,” Kei says, rolling his eyes even if Shouyou can’t see him while he’s buried in his shirt. “Maybe we should let this simmer for a while, string him along.”

“Like a secret?” Shouyou’s voice is surprised and excited, eager to be in on the joke for once. Kei wants to counter that Shouyou’s been in on the joke for almost three months, their body swap having been a secret that only they knew about except for Yamaguchi. But he doesn’t say that and he doesn’t counter it with the banter he usually would, because their entire relationship is different now and Kei has to figure out how to navigate that before he can settle into something more comfortable.

So instead he nods, his chin being tickled by the soft strands of Shouyou’s hair. “Yeah, like a secret.”

“Ohh, Tadashi is gonna be so mad when he finds out that we’ve been lying to him!” But he doesn’t sound upset, and there’s laughter in his tone and amusement laced in every word and Kei knows he’s just as eager for this practical joke because Shouyou loves jokes and he loves playing around and Kei loves that about him.

(He loves a lot about him.)

“He will, but that’ll be half the fun,” Kei insists, and Shouyou agrees with another nod.

They don’t talk for a moment, and Shouyou shifts so that he’s more comfortable on top of Kei. Kei’s back is pressed against the floor of his room, the tatami mats under him comfortable enough to lie on even with all this added pressure. He wonders if this counts as cuddling, and then he decides it probably does, since Shouyou’s arms are wrapped around him and they’re touching at every possible spot on their bodies, legs tangled together and fingers entwined and hair brushing against skin and torsos pressed hard against each other.

With every breath Kei takes, it causes Shouyou to rise and fall, his hair tickling his skin with the rhythm, and even if it threatens to make him sneeze, he loves the sensation and he finds himself wondering how he’s managed to get this far without something so calming in his life, something so warm and loving and simple.

“Hey,” Shouyou asks, nudging Kei in the side. Kei grunts in response, but it’s not angry or irritated. It just _is_ , and he likes it that way. He likes the sound of his own voice without the rough edges to it. Shouyou taught him how beautiful it could be.

“What?” he asks after a moment, when Shouyou doesn’t respond right away.

“Does that mean a kiss made us switch bodies in the first place?” he asks, nestling deeper into the crook of Kei’s arm. Kei reaches up with the hand that isn’t wrapped around Shouyou’s and strokes his head, feeling that familiar soft hair that he’s been wearing for so long.

He thinks back to how it all started, how Shouyou had fallen out of that tree and landed directly on top of Kei. He can’t remember if their heads had knocked together, if their _lips_ had knocked together, if there had been anything that could constitute a kiss at all. But even if he can’t be sure there _was_ one, he also can’t be sure there _wasn’t_. And so he shrugs noncommittally, because he can’t answer that question. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

Shouyou hums, thinking hard about Kei’s non-answer as if it holds the key to it all. Then, with a nod that Kei feels more than sees, he comes to some kind of conclusion. Kei listens intently, wanting nothing more than to latch onto every single word Shouyou says in his honey-sweet voice, that voice that sounds so much better when he’s the one talking, that voice that Kei may be able to use but could never hope to master. “So does that mean if I kiss Kuroo-san, I could switch places with him?”

Kei takes it back. He takes it all back. And he does so by shoving Shouyou off of him and sitting up abruptly, staring down at him hard with a blank expression that reads like he’s staring at an idiot (which he is). “Are you serious.”

Shouyou pushes himself up too, meeting Kei’s eyes. “Yeah! Like I said, he’s got you beat, probably. You may be the best on the team, but Kuroo-san has the height and the power and I think I’d work much better in his body than in yours, anyway. And now that I got a good taste of height, I want it again and—”

Kei cuts him off by pressing his lips into Shouyou’s, their fourth real kiss that night. It’s Kei’s fourth real kiss of his life, and he’s not used to how it feels, not yet. He wonders if he’ll get over the magnetic pull that lures him in, if he’ll get over the tingling sensation that follows after he pulls away, if he’ll get over the metaphorical sparks that fly every time their lips touch.

He doubts it.

“You talk way too much, shrimp,” he says, but his voice is too adoring, too loving, for it to sound even close to an insult. He doesn’t mean it, anyway; he could sit and listen to Shouyou talk for hours, he thinks.

Shouyou’s face puckers up and it looks _cute_ , so much cuter in his own body than it did in Kei’s. “Hey! Don’t be so mean, Jerkyshima.”

Kei smirks. “Back to old nicknames now, are we?”

“You started it!” he counters, but his face is still so close to Kei’s and Kei can feel his breath on his face and even if Shouyou sounds mad, he knows he isn’t. It’s nearly irresistible, and Kei wants to reach out and pull him closer again, even if they’re already almost touching.

“I guess I did,” he says, his eyes trained on Shouyou’s lips.

Shouyou seems to catch onto it and kisses him again. It’s short and sweet but it sends an electrifying pulse throughout Kei’s nerves and every part of him is hyperaware and hypersensitive, completely open and defenseless against Shouyou.

He’s already leaning in to steal another kiss when his mother’s voice rings out from down the hall, startling Kei. He jumps back, suddenly feeling too far away from Shouyou, but he forces himself to listen to what his mother is yelling.

“Kei! Shouyou-kun! Do you want dessert?” she calls, and with a sigh, Kei turns back to Shouyou with a longing glance, chewing at his lip.

“We should go,” Shouyou says, licking his lips. Kei’s heart stops. “Your mom makes the best dessert!”

And then Kei is laughing, unable to hide it even a little. He pushes himself off the floor and holds his hand out for Shouyou, who takes it gratefully even if he doesn’t need any help standing. There’s still a blush dusting his cheeks, and Kei thinks it’s adorable.

“It was fun,” he says in a low voice as they leave the room, hand in hand.

Shouyou looks up at him, a question in his frown. “What was?”

“This whole thing. Swapping bodies. It was weird and annoying, but… I like how it ended up.” He squeezes Shouyou’s hand, and his flush grows deeper and redder.

“Y–yeah, me too,” he stammers, but there’s a wide grin on his face, and he squeezes Kei’s hand right back. “I like how you ended up.”

It’s Kei’s turn to blush, the heat coming to his face in agonizing prickles. He has nothing to retort with because he knows it’s the truth: that he’s the one who changed the most, that he’s the one who fell so hard, that he’s the one who found his passion again. Shouyou just laughs and drags him along behind him, down the stairs and toward the kitchen.

Kei can’t take his eyes off of Shouyou as he bounces ahead in front of him, and he thinks he’d like for it to stay that way.

“Wait a second,” Shouyou says, stopping abruptly on a step halfway down the stairs. Kei almost crashes into him, and he thinks what a wonderful first date this would be, losing their footing and tumbling down the stairs in a heap.

“Hm?” he hums, pushing that scenario out of his mind.

Shouyou twists around and looks up at him, and Kei thinks it’s weird now, that he’s the one looking down. “Does that mean I can’t go to the Miyagi freshman camp?”

There’s a pout on his face and a slouch in his shoulders, and Kei can’t help the bubble of laughter that escapes from his throat. “Looks like it’s me in the end, shrimpy.”

“Wait, no!” Shouyou cries, leaning back against the wall dramatically and dragging Kei with him. “I don’t wanna switch back! Let me be you again, please!”

Kei leans down and kisses Shouyou. When they don’t switch places yet again, he shrugs. “You can’t say I didn’t try.”

Shouyou puffs out a disappointed breath.

“You could always sneak in,” Kei proposes with a mischievous smirk.

Shouyou’s face lights up brilliantly, like he’s seriously considering it.

“No. Don’t you dare,” Kei warns, shoving his finger in Shouyou’s face.

“What!” Shouyou yelps, crashing back into reality. “I didn’t say anything!”

“You didn’t have to,” Kei says. He’d say that he’s glaring at Shouyou, but really, there’s not enough heat or malice in the stare to even consider it one.

Shouyou grumbles and stares down at the floor, swinging his hands at his side and bringing Kei with him.

And Kei is overcome with emotions because his boyfriend (is that what he is? his boyfriend? it sounds so cheesy, but he doesn’t dislike the sound of it) is so _cute_ and the only thing he can think to do is laugh. Shouyou looks up at him quizzically, his face scrunched up and his eyes flitting everywhere, from his eyes to his mouth to everywhere along his torso, and then back to his eyes.

“What’s so funny?”

Kei doesn’t know how to articulate it. He’s not great with people, and he’s never felt something like this before in his life. He doesn’t know how to verbalize his feelings, and he’s never tried to. He’s certainly not Shouyou, who can read people and understand them just from a glance, who wears his heart on his sleeve, who wears emotions like hats. He’s not good at any of this.

But, he supposes, he doesn’t have to be. Because he doesn’t need words to say what he’s thinking, and he doesn’t have to pour his heart out in some cheesy romantic poem to let Shouyou know how he feels.

So he does it his own way, in his own body, with his own hands, with his own lips. He leans down and kisses him, and it finally feels right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/polythagoras) or on [tumblr](https://stellunaria.tumblr.com/) if you're interested in following my current projects or just talking to me!
> 
> and thank you again to all of you who made it through the final chapter! your support means the world to me :"3


	18. step EX. and so they move forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “They’re still in the honeymoon phase,” Yamaguchi explains. “Don’t worry. They’ll get over it eventually.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh.... i was inspired to make an "epilogue" of sorts for this fic! it's very short, but i enjoyed writing it!

“Are you _sure_ you’re really Tsukki?”

The smile falls off Kei’s face when Yamaguchi pokes him, and he reaches up to swat the hand away. “For the last time, _yes._ Now leave me alone.”

“But you’re _smiling,”_ he continues, totally ignoring the glare Kei is sending his way. “I’d say it looks out of place on you, but, I guess I’ve gotten used to it. It’s still weird thinking it’s _you_ making that kind of face, though.”

“Would you give it a rest already?” Kei snaps, squeezing Shouyou’s hand in mock warning when he giggles next to him. “I’m me, and that’s Shouyou, and this conversation is done.”

“You’re blushing, Kei,” Shouyou says, his voice muffled by his scarf. He leans further into Kei’s arm, which doesn’t actually make sense since _Shouyou’s_ the one who radiates heat no matter the weather and so really, Kei should be the one leaning into him. Maybe he just wants to be closer.

(The thought sends a thrill up his spine.)

Yamaguchi sighs dramatically, shaking his head. “You’ve grown soft. Almost like you’re a completely different person.”

Kei grimaces. “I’ve already been through that once, thanks. I don’t need to do it again.”

The entrance to Sakanoshita Store slides open and Kageyama steps out, a meat bun hanging out of his mouth as he glances between the three of them. “Do what again?” he asks between bites of his food.

“Nothing!” Shouyou is quick to say, snatching the other buns from Kageyama’s hand. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you, Smellyama.”

“Hah?” Kageyama growls, clenching his hand so tightly that the bun squishes a little in his fingers. Bits of pork squeeze out and over the lip of its enclosure, but he doesn’t even seem to realize his mistake. “What did you call me?”

Shouyou just sticks his tongue out in retaliation before reaching his hand into the bag and distributing the buns among the rest of them. Kei takes his and bites into it, moaning quietly into the taste. Steam rises and thaws his frozen nose, feathering across his cheeks until he’s sure that his whole face is pink.

“Cute,” Shouyou says, and Kei looks down to find him staring at him, a tiny smile on his lips and his eyes starry and wide. “You’re cute.”

Kageyama makes a retching noise from behind them.

“They’re still in the honeymoon phase,” Yamaguchi explains. “Don’t worry. They’ll get over it eventually.”

“They’ve been in the honeymoon phase for almost a month,” Kageyama spits. “And they were acting like freaks before then, too.”

Yamaguchi laughs. “Well, you know how it is when you’re in love.”

Kageyama shoves the last of the bun into his mouth and crosses his arms. “I do not.”

“Oh, right.” Yamaguchi’s smile tightens awkwardly, like he’s run out of things to say. Serves him right.

“Can you both stop acting like sports commentators on our love lives?” Kei gripes, the corners of his lips pulling down into a deep scowl. Shouyou tightens his grip on Kei’s arm as he eats quietly. Kei isn’t sure what effect Shouyou meant to have on Kei, but nonetheless he finds it impossible to be angry when he’s hanging off of him like a half-pint accessory.

“Well what else are we supposed to do?” Yamaguchi asks. “You brought us along on your date as third and fourth wheels, so that means we get teasing rights.” Beside him, Kageyama nods fervently.

“You guys are just jealous,” Shouyou says, his tone lilting in a sing-song.

“Of you? Hell no,” Kageyama says. “I’d rather die than date someone like Tsukishima.”

“The feeling is mutual,” Kei says. They share a glare that would only look hostile to an outsider, but Kei knows that it’s one of solidarity, a silent understanding that their relationship is steady, secure, and comfortably antagonistic.

“Sorry, I’m not interested in either of you,” Yamaguchi adds, hiding a chuckle behind his hand. “You’re _really_ not my type.”

“We get it, you’re straight,” Kei says.

“Shut up, Tsukki!” Yamaguchi shouts, his face turning red. “I’m not even straight!”

Shouyou snickers. “You don’t have to be straight to not be interested in us, Tadashi.”

“See? Shouyou gets it!” Yamaguchi waves his hands frantically, gesturing emphatically toward Shouyou. “Who would even want to date _you,_ anyway?”

Kei clears his throat and looks pointedly down at Shouyou, where he’s already waving his arm high above his head. It’s cute.

“I thought we’d all agreed that Hinata has totally lost it,” Kageyama says, eyebrows raised. “Since I can’t imagine _anyone_ in their right mind having a crush on an asshole like you.”

“Hey!” Shouyou protests, breaking off from Kei to shove his face in Kageyama’s. “I haven’t lost my mind! It’s still right between my ears, thank you very much!”

Yamaguchi reaches out feebly, as if to half-heartedly restrain him. “Shouyou, that’s not what he m—”

“I know what he means!” Shouyou huffs, but he doesn’t sound particularly angry. Kei imagines it’s hard to be angry on a day like this, when there’s nothing going on and the world is peaceful. It’s like a scene from some winter wonderland, and even with all the banter, there’s still a note of content humming in the air.

“He’s smiling again,” Yamaguchi fake-whispers to Kageyama, who rolls his eyes.

“I’m allowed to smile, you know,” Kei grumbles, forcing that very smile away.

“You? Smiling?” Yamaguchi teases. “Not likely.” 

Kageyama snorts his agreement.

“You’re too much of a grouch to smile,” he continues. “Shouyou’s the bright, happy one. You’re the Grinch who stole Christmas.”

Kei raises an eyebrow. “If _I’m_ grouchy, what does that say about Kageyama?”

“I’m not grouchy!” Kageyama protests. Kei can feel his nerves unraveling, and he smirks in satisfaction.

The grin he produces is condescending, and it only grows when Kageyama sucks in a breath, his face red and angry. “Sure, sure, whatever.” He waves his hand dismissively to accentuate his sarcastic tone.

Kageyama’s eyes bulge, and then he turns his attention to Shouyou. “What the hell do you even see in this guy?”

Shouyou opens his mouth, pauses, and then closes it, shaking his head. A punch of betrayal knocks into Kei’s stomach, mercilessly drawing his breath out. Yamaguchi, the traitor, laughs at the display. Kageyama looks smugly pleased with himself.

Yamaguchi stifles his laughter when he catches Kei’s glare. “Sorry, Tsukki!” he says, but there’s humor in his voice and his eyes are glossy with tears.

“I’m just kidding, you know!” Shouyou insists, snickering softly.

“Yeah, yeah, I believe you.” Kei nods and sucks in a deep, chilled breath, and then lets it out in a loud huff. He knows it, after all, that Shouyou is joking. Even if their entire relationship wasn’t built on teasing each other, he would know that much.

“At any rate, you’re not even that grouchy anymore,” Shouyou says, staring at him with twinkling eyes. “Maybe the second trimester helped loosen you up a bit.”

Kei almost wants to shudder at the memory of the body swap, and he’s once again grateful that he’s looking _down_ at his boyfriend instead of up. Even after a month, it feels weird to think that this is all over, like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. And yet somehow, everything is still all right.

It’s pleasant, and things are okay again.

There are no more weird, unexplainable supernatural phenomena. There’s no more stuttering over words and hiding behind false pretenses, pretending to be someone he’s not. There’s no more keeping everyone in the dark, no more feeling the loneliness and loss creep into his bones as it tries to suffocate him. 

And unless someone questions them about their weird behavior this past trimester, he can pretend that nothing weird ever happened. Everything is back to normal.

Except this time around, he has a boyfriend, and Kei has honestly never felt happier.

Maybe that’s why he’s been smiling so much.

“I guess it did,” he answers finally. He nudges Shouyou with his elbow and smiles down at him, affection clenching at his heart. “I had a lot of help, though.”

Shouyou’s eyes are knowing when he looks at him, and even though he can feel Kageyama’s disapproving, curious stare, Kei feels no need to explain what he means by that.

He feels a tug on his sleeve. It’s gentle at first, and then he’s being jerked downward, straight into Shouyou’s line of sight. Kei only manages to see the flash of a smile before Shouyou kisses him, wet and warm against the chill of late December.

“You have to admit, they’re pretty cute together,” Yamaguchi whispers behind him.

“I don’t have to do anything,” Kageyama says much more loudly. “They’re obnoxiously lovey-dovey.”

“Well, yeah, they are kind of gross,” Yamaguchi admits finally, snickering openly.

Shouyou pulls away, breathing heavy against Kei’s lips. “They’re annoying,” he says, his nose and forehead still pressed against Kei’s.  Kei nods, senses dulled in his shock from the sudden kiss. “Wanna ditch them?”

Another smile pulls at Kei’s lips, and when he nods this time, it’s less dumbstruck. He grabs Shouyou’s hand and they dash off together, ignoring Kageyama’s and Yamaguchi’s indignant shouts growing softer and softer the farther they run.

They’ll stop eventually, let the other two catch up. It’s only fair, and besides, hanging out with all of his friends is pretty fun. But for now, while they’re sprinting fast and laughing hard, Kei wants to enjoy their time alone.


End file.
